THE  FIRST  HUNDRED  THOUSAND. 
SCALLY:  THE  STORY  OF  A  PERFECT  GENTLE- 
MAN.   With  Frontispiece. 
A  KNIGHT  ON  WHEELS. 

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY.   Illustrated  by  Charles  E.  Brock. 
A  SAFETY  MATCH.    With  frontispiece. 
A  MAN'S  MAN.    With  frontisoiece. 
THE  RIGHT  STUFF.    With  frontispiece. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


A  SAFETY  MATCH 


JACK,    IT    WAS   SPLENDID    OF    YOU!    (p.  253) 


A  SAFETY  MATCH 


BY 


WITH  FRONTISPIECE  BT 
F.    GRAHAM  COOTES 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  TOBK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

($t)e  fitoerjfi&E  ptejsrf  Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,  1911,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED    ' 

Published  October  iqit 


TO 

H.  M.  S. 


2136 322 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  ONE 

THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

I.  HAPPY  FAMILIES      ...........  9 

n.  WANTED,  A  MAN     ...........  23 

III.  THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT       ......  36 

IV.  THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    ......  55 

I  V.  A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOUSNBY      .......  76 

VI.  DAPHNE  AS  MATCHMAKER     ........  94 

VII.  THE  MATCH  is  STRUCK    .........  105 

VIII.    MOBITURA  TE  SALUTAT       .........   115 

BOOK   TWO 

FLICKERINGS 

IX.  A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER     ........  129 

X.  A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS    .    .    .  145 

XI.  DIES  IRAE  ..............  165 

XII.  CILLY;  OR  THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST    .....  183 


viii  CONTENTS 

*  BOOK   THREE 

THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

YTTT.  THE  COUNTEBSTROKE 199 

XIV.  INTEBVENTION 221 

XV.  JIM  CARTHEW 234 

XVI.  SOME  ONE  TO  CONFIDE  IN 243 

XVII.  THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 250 

XVIII.  ATHANASIUS  CONTRA  MTJNDUM 26S 

XIX.  LABORARE  EST  ORARE 276 

XX.  BLACK  SUNDAY 284 

XXI.    VlEILLESSE    SAIT 289 

XXH.  HOLD  THE  FORT! 296 

XXIII.  THE  LAST  TO  LEAVE 308 

XXIV.  ANOTHER  ALIAS  .  ...  .317 


BOOK  ONE 
THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 


A  SAFETY  MATCH 

CHAPTER  I 

HAPPY  FAMILIES 

"  NICKY,  please  have  you  got  Mr.  Pots  the 
Painter?  " 

"No,  Stiffy,  but  I'll  trouble  you  for  Mrs. 
Bones  the  Butcher's  Wife.  Thank  you.  And 
Daph,  have  you  got  Master  Bones  the  Butcher's 
Son?  Thank  you.  Family!  One  to  me!" 

And  Nicky,  triumphantly  plucking  from  her 
hand  four  pink-backed  cards,  slaps  them  down 
upon  the  table  face  upwards.  They  are  appar- 
ently family  portraits.  The  first — that  of  Bones 
pere  —  depicts  a  smug  gentleman,  with  appropri- 
ate mutton-chop  whiskers,  mutilating  a  fearsome 
joint  upon  a  block;  the  second,  Mrs.  Bones,  an 
ample  matron  in  apple-green,  proffering  to  an 
unseen  customer  a  haunch  of  what  looks  like  an- 
semic  cab-horse;  the  third,  Miss  Bones,  engaged 
in  extracting  nourishment  from  a  colossal  bone 
shaped  like  a  dumb-bell;  the  fourth,  Master 
Bones  (bearing  a  strong  family  likeness  to  his 
papa),  creeping  unwillingly  upon  an  errand,  clad 


4    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

in  canary  trousers  and  a  blue  jacket,  with  a  sir- 
loin of  beef  nestling  against  his  right  ear. 

It  was  Saturday  night  at  the  Rectory,  and  the 
Vereker    family  —  "  those    absurdly    handsome 
Rectory  children,"  as  old  Lady  Curlew,  of  Hain- 
ings,  invariably  called  them  -  -  sat  round  the 
dining-room  table  playing  Happy  Families.  The 
rules  which  govern  this  absorbing  pastime  are 
simple.    The  families  are  indeed  "Happy."   They 
contain  no  widows  and  no  orphans,  and  each  pair 
of  parents  possesses  one  son  and  one  daughter  — 
perhaps  the  perfect  number,  for  the  sides  of  the 
house  are  equally  balanced  both  for  purposes  of 
companionship  and  in  the  event  of  sex-warfare. 
As  for  procedure,  cards  are  dealt  round,  and  each 
player  endeavours,  by  requests  based  upon  ob- 
servation and  deduction,  to  reunite  within  his 
own  hand  the  members  of  an  entire  family,  an 
enterprise  which,  while  it  fosters  in  those  who  un- 
dertake it  a  reverence  for  the  unities  of  home  life, 
offers  a  more  material  and  immediate  reward  in 
the  shape  of  one  point  for  each  family  collected. 
We  will  look  over  the  shoulders  of  the  players  as 
they  sit,  and  a  brief  consideration  of  each  hand 
and  of  the  tactics  of  its  owner  will  possibly  give 
us  the  key  to  the  respective  dispositions  of  the 
Vereker  family,  as  well  as  a  useful  lesson  in  the 
art  of  acquiring  that  priceless   possession,    "A 
Happy  Family." 


HAPPY  ^FAMILIES  5 

Before  starting  on  our  tour  of  the  table  we  may 
note  that  one  member  of  the  company  is  other- 
wise engaged.  This  is  Master  Anthony  Cuthbert 
Vereker,  aged  ten  years  —  usually  known  as 
Tony.  He  is  the  youngest  member  of  the  family, 
and  is  one  of  those  fortunate  people  who  are  never 
bored,  and  who  rarely  require  either  company  or 
assistance  in  their  amusements.  He  lives  in  a 
world  of  his  own,  peopled  by  folk  of  his  own  cre- 
ation; and  with  the  help  of  this  unseen  host, 
which  he  can  multiply  to  an  indefinite  extent  and 
transform  into  anything  he  pleases,  he  organises 
and  carries  out  schemes  of  recreation  beside 
which  all  the  Happy  Families  in  the  world  be- 
come humdrum  and  suburban  in  tone.  He  has 
just  taken  his  seat  upon  a  chair  opposite  to  an- 
other chair,  across  the  arms  of  which  he  has  laid 
the  lid  of  his  big  box  of  bricks,  and  is  feeling  in 
his  pocket  for  an  imaginary  key;  for  he  is  about 
to  give  an  organ  recital  in  the  Albert  Hall  (which 
he  has  never  seen)  in  a  style  modelled  upon  that 
of  the  village  organist,  whom  he  studies  through 
a  chink  in  a  curtain  every  Sunday. 

Presently  the  lid  is  turned  back,  and  the  key- 
board —  a  three-manual  affair  ingeniously  com- 
posed of  tiers  of  wooden  bricks  —  is  exposed  to 
view.  The  organist  arranges  unseen  music  and 
pulls  out  invisible  stops.  Then,  having  risen  to 
set  up  on  the  mantelpiece  hard  by  a  square  of 


6    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

cardboard  bearing  the  figure  [1],  he  resumes  his 
seat  and  embarks  upon  a  rendering  of  Handel's 
Largo  in  G  which  its  composer,  to  be  just,  would 
have  experienced  no  difficulty  in  recognising, 
though  he  might  have  expressed  some  surprise 
that  so  large  an  instrument  as  the  Albert  Hall 
organ  should  produce  so  small  a  volume  of  sound. 
But  then  Handel  never  played  his  own  Largo  in  a 
room  full  of  elder  brothers  and  sisters,  immersed 
in  the  acquisition  of  Happy  Families  and  impa- 
tient of  distracting  noises. 

The  Largo  completed,  its  executant  rises  to  his 
feet  and  bows  again  and  again  in  the  direction  of 
the  sideboard ;  and  then  (the  applause  having  ap- 
parently subsided)  solemnly  turns  round  the 
cardboard  square  on  the  mantelpiece  so  as  to 
display  the  figure  [2],  and  sets  to  work  upon  The 
Lost  Chord. 

Meanwhile  the  Happy  Families  are  being  rap- 
idly united.  The  houses  of  Pots  the  Painter,  Bun 
the  Baker,  and  Dose  the  Doctor  lie  neatly  piled 
at  Nicky's  right  hand,  and  that  Machiavellian 
damosel  is  now  engaged  in  a  businesslike  quest 
for  the  only  outstanding  member  of  the  family 
of  Grits  the  Grocer. 

Nicky  —  or  Veronica  Elizabeth  Vereker, — 
was  in  many  respects  the  most  remarkable  of  the 
Rectory  children.  She  was  thirteen  years  old, 
was  the  only  dark-haired  member  of  the  family, 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  7 

and  (as  she  was  fond  of  explaining)  was  possessed 
of  a  devil.  This  remarkable  circumstance  was 
sometimes  adduced  as  a  distinction  and  some- 
times as  an  excuse,  the  former  when  impression- 
able and  nervous  children  came  to  tea,  the  latter 
when  all  other  palliatives  of  crime  had  failed. 
Certainly  she  could  lay  claim  to  the  brooding 
spirit,  the  entire  absence  of  fear,  the  unlimited 
low  cunning,  and  the  love  of  sin  for  its  own  sake 
which  go  to  make  the  master-criminal.  At  pre- 
sent she  was  enjoying  herself  in  characteristic 
fashion.  Her  brother  Stephen,  —  known  as 
"Stiffy" — Nicky's  senior  by  one  year,  a  trans- 
parently honest  but  somewhat  limited  youth,  had 
for  the  greater  part  of  the  game  been  applying 
a  slow-moving  intellect  to  the  acquisition  of 
one  complete  Family.  Higher  he  did  not  look. 
Nicky's  habit  was  to  allow  Stiffy,  with  infinite 
labour,  to  collect  the  majority  of  the  members  of 
a  Family  in  which  she  herself  was  interested,  and 
then,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  to  swoop  down  and 
strip  her  unconscious  collaborator  of  his  hardly 
earned  collection. 

Stiffy,  sighing  patiently,  had  just  surrendered 
Mr.,  Mrs.,  and  Miss  Block  (Hairdressers  and 
dealers  in  Toilet  Requisites)  to  the  depredatory 
hands  of  Nicky,  and  was  debating  in  his  mind 
whether  he  should  endeavour,  when  his  next 
chance  came,  to  complete  the  genealogical  tree 


8    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

of  Mr.  Soot  the  Sweep,  or  make  a  corner  in  the 
clan  of  Bung  the  Brewer.  Possessing  two  Bungs 
to  one  Soot  he  decided  on  the  latter  alternative. 

Presently  he  was  asked  by  his  elder  sister  Cilly 
(Monica  Cecilia)  for  a  card  which  he  did  not  pos- 
sess, and  this  gave  him  the  desired  opening. 

"I  say,  Nicky,"  he  began  deferentially,  "have 
you  got  Master  Bung?" 

Nicky  surveyed  her  hand  for  a  moment,  and 
then  raised  a  pair  of  liquid  blue  eyes  and  smiled 
seraphically. 

"No,  Stiffy  dear,"  she  replied;  "but  I'll  have 
Mr.  Bung  and  Mrs.  Bung." 

Stiffy,  resigned  as  ever,  handed  over  the  cards. 
Suddenly  Sebastian  Aloysius  Vereker,  the  eldest 
son  of  the  family  (usually  addressed  as  "Ally"), 
put  down  his  cards  and  remarked,  slowly  and 
without  heat :  — 

"Cheating  again!  My  word,  Nicky,  you  are 
the  absolute  edge!" 

"Who  is  cheating?"  enquired  Veronica  in  a 
shocked  voice. 

"You.  Either  you  must  have  Master  Bung,  or 
else  you  are  asking  for  Stiffy's  cards  without  hav- 
ing any  Bungs  at  all;  because  I've  got  Miss  my- 
self." 

He  laid  the  corybantic  young  lady  in  question 
upon  the  table  to  substantiate  his  statement. 

Nicky  remained  entirely  unruffled. 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  9 

"Oh  —  Bung!"  she  exclaimed.  "Sony!  I 
thought  you  said  'Bun,'  Stiffy.  You  should  spit 
out  your  G's  a  bit  more,  my  lad.  Bung-gah  — 
like  that !  I  really  must  speak  to  Dad  about  your 
articulation." 

In  polite  card-playing  circles  a  lady's  word  is 
usually  accepted  as  sufficient;  but  the  ordinary 
courtesies  of  everyday  life  do  not  prevail  in  a 
family  of  six. 

"Rot!  "said  Ally. 

"Cheat!"  said  Cilly. 

"Never  mind ! "  said  loyal  and  peaceable  Stiffy. 
"I  don't  care,  really.  Let's  go  on." 

"It's  not  fair,"  cried  Cilly.  "Poor  Stiffy 
has  n't  got  a  single  Family  yet.  Give  it  to  him, 
Nicky,  you  little  beast!  Daph,  make  her!" 

Daph  was  the  eldest  of  the  flock,  and  for  want 
of  a  mother  dispensed  justice  and  equity  to  the 
rest  of  the  family  from  the  heights  of  nineteen. 
For  the  moment  she  was  assisting  the  organist, 
who  had  inadvertently  capsized  a  portion  of  his 
keyboard.  Now  she  returned  to  the  table. 

"What  is  it,  rabble?  "  she  enquired  maternally. 

A  full-throated  chorus  informed  her,  and  the 
arbitress  detached  the  threads  of  the  dispute 
with  effortless  dexterity. 

"  You  said  you  thought  he  was  asking  for  Miss 
Bun  and  not  Bung?"  she  remarked  to  the  ac- 
cused. 


10    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"Yes  — that  was  all,"  began  Nicky.  "You 
see,"  she  continued  pathetically,  "they  're  all  so 
beastly  unjust  to  me,  and  — " 

Daphne  picked  up  her  small  sister's  pile  of 
completed  Families  and  turned  them  over. 

:<  You  could  n't  have  thought  Stiffy  wanted 
Buns"  she  said  in  measured  tones,  "because 
they're  all  here.  You  collected  them  yourself. 
You've  cheated  again.  Upstairs,  and  no  jam  till 
Wednesday ! " 

It  is  a  tribute  to  Miss  Vereker's  disciplinary 
methods  that  the  turbulent  Nicky  rose  at  once 
to  her  feet  and,  with  a  half-tearful,  half-defiant 
reference  to  her  satanic  inhabitant,  left  the  room 
and  departed  upstairs,  there  to  meditate  on  a 
Bun-strewn  past  and  a  jamless  future. 

Daphne  Vereker  was  perhaps  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  an  extraordinarily  attractive  family.  Her 
full  name  was  Daphne  Margaret.  Her  parents, 
whether  from  inherent  piety  or  on  the  Incus  a  non 
lucendo  principle,  had  endowed  their  offspring 
with  the  names  of  early  saints  and  martyrs.  The 
pagan  derivative  Daphne  was  an  exception.  It 
had  been  the  name  of  Brian  Vereker's  young 
bride,  and  had  been  bestowed,  uncanonically 
linked  with  that  of  a  saint  of  blameless  anteced- 
ents, upon  the  first  baby  which  had  arrived  at 
the  Rectory.  Mrs.  Vereker  had  died  ten  years 
later,  two  hours  after  the  birth  of  that  fertile 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  11 

genius  Anthony  Cuthbert,  and  Brian  Vereker, 
left  to  wrestle  with  the  upbringing  of  six  children 
on  an  insufficient  stipend  in  a  remote  country 
parish,  had  come  to  lean  more  and  more,  in  the 
instinctive  but  exacting  fashion  of  lonely  man, 
upon  the  slim  shoulders  of  his  eldest  daughter. 

There  are  certain  attributes  of  woman  before 
which  the  male  sex,  whose  sole  knowledge  of  the 
ways  of  life  is  derived  from  that  stern  instructor 
Experience,  can  only  stand  and  gape  in  reverend 
awe.  When  her  mother  died,  Daphne  Vereker 
was  a  tow-headed,  long-legged,  irresponsible 
marauder  of  eleven.  In  six  months  she  looked 
like  a  rather  prim  little  nursery  governess ;  in  two 
years  she  could  have  taken  the  chair  at  a  mo- 
thers' meeting.  Circumstance  is  a  great  forcing- 
house,  especially  where  women  are  concerned. 
Her  dreamy,  unpractical,  affectionate  father,  ob- 
livious of  the  expectant  presence  in  the  offing  of 
numerous  female  relatives-in-law,  had  remarked 
in  sober  earnest  to  his  little  daughter,  walking 
erect  by  his  side  in  her  short  black  frock  on  the 
way  home  from  the  funeral:  —  "You  and  I  will 
have  to  bring  up  the  children  between  us  now, 
Daphne";  and  the  child,  with  an  odd  thrill  of 
pride  at  being  thus  promoted  to  woman's  highest 
office  at  the  age  of  eleven,  had  responded  with 
the  utmost  gravity :  — 

"  You  had  better  stick  to  the  parish,  Dad,  and 
-I'll  manage  the  kids." 


12    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

And  she  had  done  it.  As  she  presides  at  the 
table  this  Saturday  evening,  with  her  round  chin 
resting  on  her  hands,  surveying  the  picturesque 
crew  of  ragamuffins  before  her,  we  cannot  but 
congratulate  her  on  the  success  of  her  methods, 
whatever  those  may  be.  On  her  right  lolls  the 
apple  of  her  eye,  the  eldest  son,  Ally.  He  is  a 
handsome  boy,  with  a  ready  smile  and  a  rather 
weak  mouth.  He  is  being  educated  —  God 
knows  by  what  anxious  economies  in  other  direc- 
tions —  at  a  great  public  school.  When  he  leaves, 
which  will  be  shortly,  the  money  will  go  to  edu- 
cate Stiffy,  who  is  rising  fourteen. 

Next  to  Ally  sprawls  Cilly,  an  amorphous 
schoolgirl  with  long  rippling  hair  and  great  grey 
eyes  that  are  alternately  full  of  shy  enquiry  and 
hoydenish  exuberance.  Then  comes  the  chair 
recently  vacated  by  the  Madonna-like  Nicky; 
then  the  ruddy  countenance  and  cheerful  pre- 
sence of  the  sunny-tempered  Stiffy,  completing 
the  circle.  In  the  corner  Master  Anthony  Cuth- 
bert,  cherubic  and  rapturous,  is  engaged,  with 
every  finger  and  toe  in  action,  upon  the  final 
fugue  of  the  Hallelujah  Chorus.  The  number  [6] 
stands  upon  the  mantelpiece,  for  the  recital  is 
drawing  to  a  close. 

To  describe  Daphne  herself  is  not  easy.  One 
fact  is  obvious,  and  that  is  that  she  possesses  an 
instinct  for  dress  not  as  yet  acquired  by  any  of 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  13 

her  brothers  and  sisters.  Her  hair  is  of  a  pecul- 
iarly radiant  gold,  reflecting  high  lights  at  every 
turn  of  her  head.  Her  eyes  are  brown,  of  the  hue 
of  a  Highland  burn  on  a  sunny  afternoon,  and 
her  eyebrows  are  very  level  and  serene.  Her  col- 
ouring is  perfect,  and  when  she  smiles  we  under- 
stand why  it  is  that  her  unregenerate  brothers 
and  sisters  occasionally  address  her  as  "Odol." 
When  her  face  is  in  repose  —  which,  to  be  frank, 
is  not  often  —  there  is  a  pathetic  droop  at  the 
corners  of  her  mouth,  which  is  perhaps  accounted 
for  by  the  cares  of  premature  responsibility.  She 
is  dressed  in  brown  velvet,  with  a  lace  collar,  — 
evening  dress  does  not  prevail  in  a  household 
which  affects  high  tea,  but  Daphne  always  puts 
on  her  Sunday  frock  on  Saturday  evenings,  — 
and,  having  discovered  that  certain  colours  suit 
her  better  than  others,  she  has  threaded  a  pale 
blue  ribbon  through  her  hair. 

Altogether  she  is  a  rather  astonishing  young 
person  to  find  sitting  contentedly  resting  her  el- 
bows upon  a  dingy  tablecloth  in  an  untidy  dining- 
room  which  smells  of  American  leather  and  fried 
eggs.  It  is  as  if  one  had  discovered  the  Venus  de 
Milo  presiding  at  a  Dorcas  Society,  or  Helen  of 
Troy  serving  crumpets  in  an  A.  B.  C.  shop. 

The  Hallelujah  Chorus  has  just  stopped  dead 
at  that  paralysing  hiatus  of  two  bars  which  im- 
mediately precedes  the  final  crash,  when  the  door 


opens  and  the  Reverend  Brian  Vereker  appears. 
A  glance  at  his  clear-cut  aristocratic  features 
goes  a  long  way  towards  deciding  the  question  of 
the  origin  of  the  good  looks  of  "those  Rectory 
children." 

He  is  a  tall  man,  —  six  feet  two,  —  and  al- 
though he  is  barely  fifty  his  hair  is  specklessly 
white.  He  looks  more  like  a  great  prelate  or 
statesman  than  a  country  parson.  Perhaps  he 
might  have  been,  had  he  been  born  the  eldest  son 
of  the  eldest  son  of  a  peer,  instead  of  the  youngest 
son  of  the  youngest.  And  again,  perhaps  not. 
The  lines  of  his  face  indicate  brain  rather  than 
character,  and  after  all  it  is  character  that  brings 
us  out  on  top  in  this  world.  There  are  furrows 
about  his  forehead  that  tell  of  much  study;  but 
about  the  corners  of  the  mouth,  where  prompti- 
tude and  decision  usually  set  their  seal,  there  is 
nothing  —  nothing  but  a  smile  of  rare  sweetness. 
His  gentle  blue  eyes  have  the  dreamy  gaze  that 
marks  the  saints  and  poets  of  this  world:  the 
steely  glitter  of  the  man  of  action  is  lacking.  Al- 
together you  would  say  that  Brian  Vereker  would 
make  a  noble  figurehead  to  any  high  enterprise, 
but  you  would  add  that  if  that  enterprise  was  to 
succeed  the  figurehead  would  require  a  good  deal  of 
driving  power  behind  it.  And  you  would  be  right. 

The  Rector  paused  in  the  doorway  and  sur- 
veyed the  lamplit  room. 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  15 

"Hath  spo-o-o-oken  it!"  vociferated  the  Al- 
bert Hall  Organ  with  an  air  of  triumphant 
finality. 

Brian  Vereker  turned  to  his  youngest  son  with 
the  ready  sympathy  of  one  child  for  another 
child's  games. 

"That's  right,  Tony!  That's  the  stuff!  Good 
old  George  Frederick!  He  knew  the  meaning  of 
the  word  music  —  eh?  " 

"  Yes — George  Fwederick!"  echoed  the  organ- 
ist. "And  Arthur  Seymour,  Daddy!  You've  just 
missed  The  Lost  Chord." 

"Ah,"  said  the  Rector  in  a  tone  of  genuine  re- 
gret; "that's  a  pity.  But  we  had  the  Seventy- 
eighth  Psalm  to-night,  and  I  'm  later  than  usual." 

"Quadruple  chant?"  enquired  Tony  profes- 
sionally. 

"Rather!  But  is  your  recital  quite  over,  boyo?  " 

"  Yes  —  bedtime!"  replied  the  organist,  with  a 
reproachful  glance  in  the  direction  of  his  eldest 
sister. 

"Run  along,  dear!"  was  all  the  comfort  he  re- 
ceived from  that  inflexible  despot. 

"All  right!  I  must  lock  up,  though." 

Master  Tony  removed  the  last  number  from 
the  mantelpiece,  disintegrated  his  keyboard  and 
packed  it  up  with  the  other  bricks,  and  drawing 
aside  the  window  curtain,  remarked  solemnly 
into  the  dark  recess  behind  it:  — 


16    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"That  will  be  all  to-night,  organ-blower.  You 
can  go  home  now." 

To  which  a  husky  and  ventriloquial  voice  re- 
plied:— 

"Thank  you  kindly,  Mr.  Handel,  sir.  Good- 
night!" 

"Now,"  concluded  Mr.  Handel,  turning  to  his 
elders  with  the  air  of  a  martyr  addressing  a  group 
of  arena  lions,  "I'm  ready!" 

"Take  him  up,  Cilly  dear,"  said  Daphne.  "I 
must  look  after  Dad's  supper." 

"Come  on,  Tony,"  said  Cilly,  uncoiling  her 
long  legs  from  under  her  and  rising  from  the 
hearthrug. 

"Righto!"  said  Tony.  "You  be  a  cart-horse 
and  I'll  be  a  broken-down  motor." 

Monica  Cecilia  Vereker  meekly  complied,  and 
departed  upstairs,  towing  the  inanimate  mechan- 
ism of  the  inventive  Anthony  behind  her  bump 
by  bump,  utilising  her  sash,  which  she  had  re- 
moved for  the  purpose,  as  a  tow-rope. 

"Ally  and  Stiffy,"  commanded  Daphne,  turn- 
ing to  the  two  remaining  members  of  the  family, 
"you'd  better  go  and  pump  the  cistern  full.  Sat- 
urday night,  you  know,  and  the  kids'  baths  have 
just  been  filled:  so  look  sharp  before  the  boiler 
bursts." 

Stiffy,  obliging  as  ever,  rose  at  once;  Ally,  cum- 
bered by  that  majesty  which  doth  hedge  a  sixth- 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  17 

form  boy  and  a  member  of  the  School  Fifteen 
(especially  when  ordered  about  by  a  female),  was 
more  deliberate  in  his  acquiescence.  However, 
presently  both  the  boys  were  gone,  and  five  min- 
utes later  Daphne,  with  the  assistance  of  the  one 
little  maid  whom  the  establishment  supported, 
had  laid  the  Rector's  supper.  She  established  her 
father  in  his  seat  on  one  side  of  the  table  and  took 
her  own  on  the  other,  assisting  the  progress  of  the 
meal  from  time  to  time,  but  for  the  most  part  sit- 
ting with  her  chin  resting  upon  her  two  fists  and 
contemplating  the  tired  man  before  her  with  seri- 
ous brown  eyes.  Twice  she  had  to  leave  her  seat, 
once  to  remove  the  butter  from  the  vicinity  of  her 
parent's  elbow,  and  once  to  frustrate  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  that  excellent  but  absent-minded 
man  to  sprinkle  sugar  over  a  lettuce. 

"Well,  my  daughter,"  remarked  the  Rector 
presently,  "what  of  the  weekly  report?" 

Saturday  night  at  the  Rectory  was  reserved 
for  a  sort  of  domestic  budget. 

"Here  are  the  books,"  said  Daphne.  " They  're 
much  as  usual,  except  that  I  had  to  pay  two  bob 
on  Wednesday  for  a  bottle  of  embrocation  for 
Ally.  He  is  in  training  for  the  Mile  in  the  Sports 
at  the  beginning  of  next  term,  and  it  does  his 
muscles  so  much  good." 

"When  I  won  the  Mile  at  Fenner's,  Daphne," 
began  the  Reverend  Brian  with  a  sudden  glow  of 


18    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

reminiscence  in  his  dreamy  eyes,  "  I  did  without 
embrocation  or  any  other  new-fashioned  —  " 

"Yes,  dear,  but  they  have  to  run  so  much 
faster  now  than  they  did,"  explained  Daphne 
soothingly.  "Then,  about  the  kitchen  chim- 
ney-" 

"  But  I  only  took  four  minutes,  twenty-eight  — ! 

"Yes,  old  man;  and  I'm  proud  of  you!"  said 
Daphne  swiftly.  —  "Well,  the  sweep  is  coming  in 
on  Wednesday,  when  you  '11  be  away  at  Wilf ord, 
so  that 's  all  right."  She  was  anxious  to  get  away 
from  the  question  of  the  embrocation.  It  had  been 
a  rank  extravagance,  and  she  knew  it :  but  Ally  was 
ever  her  weak  spot.  "Then,  I've  got  three-and- 
nine  in  hand  out  of  current  expenses  just  now, 
and  if  I  take  two  half-crowns  out  of  the  Emer- 
gency Bag  and  we  go  without  a  second  joint  this 
week,  I  can  get  Nicky  a  new  pair  of  boots,  if  you 
don 't  mind.  (Don 't  cut  the  cheese  with  a  spoon, 
dear:  take  this  knife.)  Of  course  we  ought  not  to 
have  to  go  to  the  Emergency  Bag  for  boots  at  all. 
It's  rather  upsetting.  To-day  I  find  that  a  per- 
fectly ducky  pair  of  Sunday  shoes  which  I  out- 
grew just  before  I  stopped  growing,  and  was 
keeping  especially  for  that  child,  are  too  small  for 
her  by  yards.  (I  had  tried  them  on  Cilly  a  year 
ago,  but  she  simply  could  n't  get  her  toe  in.)  And 
now  they  '11  be  wasted,  because  there  are  no  more 
of  us  girls.  My  feet  are  most  irritating." 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  19 

"Your  mother  had  tiny  feet,"  said  the  Rector, 
half  to  himself. 

He  pushed  away  his  plate  and  gazed  absently 
before  him  into  that  land  where  his  son  Tony  still 
spent  so  much  of  his  time,  and  whither  Tony's 
young  and  pretty  mother  had  been  borne  away 
ten  years  before.  Daphne  permitted  him  a  rev- 
erie of  five  minutes,  while  she  puckered  her  brow 
over  the  account  books.  Then  she  rose  and  took 
down  a  pipe  from  a  rack  on  the  mantelpiece.  This 
she  filled  from  a  cracked  jar  thirty  years  old, 
adorned  with  the  coat-of-arms  of  one  of  the  three 
Royal  colleges  of  Cambridge,  and  laid  it  by  her 
father's  left  hand. 

"Then  there's  another  thing,"  she  continued, 
lighting  a  spill  at  the  fire.  "Is  n't  it  time  to  enter 
Stifty  for  school?  Mr.  Allnutt  asked  us  to  say 
definitely  by  April  whether  he  was  coming  to  fill 
Ally's  place  after  summer  or  not;  otherwise  he 
would  be  obliged  to  give  the  vacancy  to  some  one 
else.  It's  the  end  of  March  now." 

The  Rector  lit  his  pipe  —  his  one  luxury  —  in  a 
meditative  fashion,  and  then  leaned  back  to  con- 
template his  daughter,  with  her  glinting  hair  and 
troubled  little  frown. 

"Mr.  Allnutt?  To  be  sure!  Of  course.  A  ripe 
scholar,  Daphne,  and  a  long-standing  personal 
friend  of  my  own.  He  took  the  Person  and  Craven 
in  successive  years.  His  Iambics  —  " 


20    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

All  this  was  highly  irrelevant,  and  exceedingly 
characteristic.  Daphne  waited  patiently  through 
a  resume  of  Mr.  Allnutt's  achievements  as  a 
scholar  and  a  divine,  and  continued :  — 

"Will  you  enter  Stiffy  at  once,  then?  It 
would  be  a  pity  not  to  get  him  into  Ally's  old 
house." 

Brian  Vereker,  suddenly  recalled  to  business, 
laid  down  his  pipe  and  sighed. 

"Boys  are  terribly  expensive  things,  little 
daughter,"  he  said.  "And  we  are  so  very,  very 
poor.  I  wonder  if  they  are  worth  it." 

"Of  course  they  are,  the  dears!"  said  Daphne, 
up  in  arms  at  once. 

"Of  course,  of  course,"  agreed  the  Rector 
apologetically.  "You  are  right,  child;  you  are 
always  right.  It  is  ungrateful  and  un-Christian 
of  me  to  give  expression  to  such  thoughts  when 
God  has  granted  me  three  good  sons.  Still,  I  ad- 
mit it  was  a  disappointment  to  me  when  Ally 
failed  to  gain  a  scholarship  at  Cambridge.  He 
may  have  been  right  in  his  assertion  that  there 
was  an  exceptionally  strong  set  of  candidates  up 
on  that  occasion,  but  it  was  unfortunate  that  he 
should  have  overslept  himself  on  the  morning  of 
the  Greek  Prose  Paper,  even  though,  as  he  pointed 
out,  Greek  Prose  is  his  weak  subject.  What  a 
misfortune!  Strange  lodgings,  probably!  Still, 
his  disappointment  must  be  far  greater  than  ours, 


HAPPY  FAMILIES  21 

so  it  would  be  ungenerous  to  dwell  further  on  the 
matter.  But  I  fail  to  see  at  present  how  he  can  be 
started  in  life  now.  If  only  one  had  a  little  money 
to  spare!  I  have  never  felt  the  need  of  such  a 
thing  before." 

:<  Yes,  we  could  do  with  a  touch  of  it,"  assented 
Miss  Vereker  elegantly.  She  began  to  tack  off  the 
family  requirements  on  her  fingers.  "There's 
Ally  to  be  started  in  life;  and  Cilly  ought  to  be 
sent  somewhere  and  finished,  —  she 's  tragically 
gawky,  and  she'd  be  perfectly  lovely  if  she  was 
given  half  a  chance;  and  Stiffy  has  to  be  sent  to 
school ;  and  the  two  kiddies  are  growing  up,  and 
this  house  is  simply  tumbling  down  for  want  of 
repairs;  and  it's  really  time  you  had  a  curate  for 
long-distance  visiting  —  " 

"Never!"  said  Brian  Vereker  firmly. 

"All  right.  Never,  if  you  like,  but  he'll  have  to 
come  some  day,"  said  Daphne  serenely.  (The 
question  of  the  curate  cropped  up  almost  as  regu- 
larly as  that  of  the  second  joint  on  Wednesdays.) 
"And  all  we've  got  to  run  the  whole  show  on," 
she  concluded,  writh  a  pathetic  little  frown, 
which  many  a  man  would  gladly  have  given  his 
whole  estate  to  smooth  away,  "is  —  two  pounds 
seventeen  and  ninepence  in  the  Emergency  Bag! 
It's  a  bit  thick,  is  n't  it?" 

Brian  Vereker  surveyed  his  daughter's  trou- 
bled countenance  with  characteristic  serenity. 


22    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

Simple  faith  —  some  called  it  unpractical  optim- 
ism —  was  the  main  article  of  his  creed. 

"The  Lord  will  provide,  my  daughter,"  he 
said. 

At  this  moment  the  door  opened  with  a  flour- 
ish, and,  the  crimson  and  enraged  countenance  of 
Master  Anthony  Cuthbert  Vereker  having  been 
thrust  into  the  room,  its  owner  enquired,  in  a 
voice  rendered  husky  by  emotion,  how  any  one 
could  be  expected  to  impersonate  a  dreadnought 
going  into  action  in  the  bath,  when  the  said  bath 
was  encumbered  with  the  corpses  of  members  of 
the  insect  world  left  there  to  drown  by  a  previous 
occupant.  In  other  words,  was  he  to  be  bathed  in 
the  same  water  as  Nicky? 

It  was  an  old  grievance,  arising  from  the  insuf- 
ficient nature  of  the  Rectory  water-supply  (which 
had  to  be  pumped  up  by  hand  from  the  garden), 
and  the  smallness  of  the  kitchen  boiler;  and 
Daphne  had  perforce  to  go  upstairs  to  adjust  it. 
Consequently  the  sitting  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  with  all  its  immediate  necessi- 
ties and  problems  for  the  future,  was  incontinently 
suspended. 


CHAPTER  II 

WANTED,  A   MAN 

FIVE  gentlemen  sat  side  by  side  along  a  baize- 
covered  table  in  a  dingy  room  in  a  dingier  build- 
ing not  far  from  the  principal  pit-head  of  Mirk- 
ley  Colliery.  They  were  the  representatives  of 
the  local  Colliery  Owners'  Association,  and  they 
were  assembled  and  met  together  for  the  purpose 
of  receiving  a  deputation  representing  the  united 
interests  and  collective  wisdom  of  their  employes. 

It  should  be  noted  that  although  there  were 
five  gentlemen  present,  six  chairs  were  set  along 
the  table. 

Now  a  deputation  may  be  defined  as  an  instru- 
ment designed  to  extract  from  you  something 
which  you  have  not  the  slightest  desire  to  give  up. 
Consequently  the  reception  of  such,  whether  you 
be  a  damsel  listening  for  the  rat-a-tat  of  an  unde- 
sired  suitor  who  has  written  asking  for  an  inter- 
view, or  a  dethroned  Royal  Family  sitting  in  its 
deserted  abode  awaiting  the  irruption  of  a  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Safety,  composed  of  the  greater 
part  of  its  late  loyal  subjects  armed  with  bill- 
hooks and  asking  for  blood,  is  always  an  uncom- 
fortable business  at  the  best.  Our  five  gentlemen 


24    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

do  not  appear  to  be  enjoying  their  present  posi- 
tion any  more  than  the  two  examples  cited 
above.  In  fact,  they  look  so  exceedingly  averse 
to  interviews  or  arguments  of  any  description 
that  we  will  leave  them  for  a  moment  and  divert 
our  attention  to  the  deputation  itself,  which  is 
delicately  skirting  puddles  of  coal-black  water 
and  heaps  of  pit  refuse  on  its  way  from  the  boiler 
house,  where  its  members  have  assembled,  to  the 
office  buildings  of  the  colliery. 

They  are  six  in  number,  and  we  will  describe 
them  seriatim. 

Mr.  Tom  Winch  is  a  professional  agitator, 
though  he  calls  himself  something  else.  He  is 
loud-voiced,  and  ceaseless  in  argument  of  a  sort. 
His  notion  of  a  typical  member  of  the  upper 
classes  is  a  debilitated  imbecile  suffering  from 
chronic  alcoholism  and  various  maladies  incident 
on  over-indulgence,  who  divides  his  time  between 
gloating  over  money-bags  and  grinding  the  faces 
of  the  poor.  He  privately  regards  Trades  Unions 
as  an  antiquated  drag  upon  the  wheels  of  that 
chariot  at  the  tail  of  which  he  hopes  one  day  to  see 
Capital  led  captive,  gentlemen  like  Mr.  Tom 
Winch  handling  the  reins  and  plying  the  whip. 

Mr.  Amos  Entwistle  is  a  working  collier,  and  is 
rightly  regarded  by  both  parties  as  a  safe  man. 
He  is  habitually  sober,  scrupulously  honest,  and 
has  worked  at  Cherry  Hill  Pit  for  nearly  forty 


WANTED,  A  MAN  25 

years.  He  looks  upon  Trades  Unions  as  his  father 
and  mother. 

Mr.  Jacob  Entwistle  is  the  Nestor  of  the  party. 
(Amos  is  his  son.)  He  is  a  patriarchal  old  gentle- 
man, with  a  long  white  beard,  the  manner  of  an 
ambassador,  the  deafness  of  an  adder,  and  the 
obstinacy  of  a  mule.  Altogether  he  is  just  the  sort 
of  man  to  prove  a  valuable  asset  to  any  properly 
constituted  deputation.  He  is  the  senior  member 
of  the  local  branch  of  the  Employes '  Association. 
He  regards  himself  as  the  father  and  mother  of 
Trades  Unions. 

Mr.  Albert  Brash  is  an  expert  in  the  art  of  what 
may  be  called  Righteous  Indignation.  Never  was 
there  such  an  exploiter  of  grievances.  Is  short 
time  declared?  Mr.  Brash  calls  for  an  Act  of 
Parliament.  Is  there  an  explosion  of  fire-damp? 
Mr.  Brash  mutters  darkly  that  one  of  these  days  a 
director  must  swing.  Does  a  careless  worker  re- 
move a  pit-top  and  bring  down  an  avalanche  of 
coal  on  himself?  Mr.  Brash  raises  clenched  hands 
to  heaven  and  clamours  for  a  revolution.  So  per- 
sistently and  so  methodically  does  Mr.  Brash  lay 
upon  the  shoulders  of  Capital  the  responsibility 
for  all  the  ills  to  which  flesh  is  liable,  from  a  hard 
winter  to  triplets,  that  he  has  ultimately  (as  is  the 
way  in  this  short-sighted  world  of  ours)  achieved 
the  position  of  Sir  Oracle.  His  deportment  is  that 
of  a  stage  conspirator,  and  he  rarely  speaks  above 


26    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

a  hoarse  and  arresting  whisper.  He  calls  himself 
an  Anarchist,  but  he  quails  at  the  passing  of  the 
most  benevolent  policeman.  He  regards  Trades 
Unions  as  well-meaning  institutions  with  but  lit- 
tle discrimination  as  to  their  choice  of  leaders. 

Mr.  James  Killick  is  a  thoroughly  honest,  tho- 
roughly muddle-headed  Socialist  of  a  rather  com- 
mon type.  Like  many  a  wiser  and  more  observ- 
ant man  before  him,  he  has  realised  something  of 
the  grinding  misery  and  suffering  of  this  world, 
and  a  great  and  vague  desire  to  better  things  is 
surging  inarticulately  within  him.  He  has  come 
to  the  conclusion,  as  most  half -educated  philoso- 
phers usually  do,  that  the  simplest  remedy  would 
be  to  take  from  those  who  have  and  give  the  pro- 
ceeds to  those  who  have  not.  The  fact  that  the 
world  is  divided  into  men  to  whose  hands  money 
sticks  like  glue  and  men  through  whose  fingers  it 
slips  like  water,  and  that  consequently  a  Utopian 
redistribution  of  property  would  have  to  be  re- 
peated at  inconveniently  frequent  intervals  in 
order  to  preserve  the  social  balance,  has  not  yet 
been  borne  in  on  him.  He  regards  Trades  Union- 
ism as  a  broken  reed. 

Mr.  Adam  Wilkie  is  a  Scot  of  the  dourest  and 
most  sepulchral  appearance.  He  represents 
Marbledown  Colliery.  Native  reticence  and  an 
extremely  cautious  manner  of  expressing  him- 
self have  invested  him  with  that  halo  of  business 


WANTED,  A  MAN  27 

acumen  which  appears  to  be  inevitable  to  the 
Scot  as  viewed  by  the  Sassenach,  and  his  very  si- 
lence is  regarded  with  respectful  admiration  by 
his  more  verbose  colleagues.  In  reality  he  is  an 
intensely  stupid,  entirely  placid  individual. 
Still,  he  has  kept  himself  by  native  thrift  in  tol- 
erable comfort  all  his  life  without  extraneous 
assistance,  and  he  consequently  regards  Trades 
Unions  as  an  institution  specially  and  mercifully 
introduced  by  Providence  for  the  purpose  of  keep- 
ing the  weak-kneed  English  out  of  the  poorhouse. 

"Who's  to  be  there?"  enquired  Mr.  Brash  of 
Mr.  Entwistle  senior. 

That  patriarch,  who  was  negotiating  a  mount- 
ainous wasteheap,  made  no  reply. 

"Who  are  we  going  to  meet?"  repeated  Mr. 
Brash  in  a  louder  tone. 

"Eh?"  enquired  Mr.  Entwistle,  giving  his  in- 
variable answer  to  any  sudden  question. 

"Who  are  we  going  to  meet?"  bawled  Mr. 
Winch. 

Mr.  Entwistle,  who  was  never  at  a  loss  a 
second  time,  smiled  benignantly  and  replied:  — 

"Aye,  that's  so.  But  maybe  we  can  manage  to 
dry  'em  at  the  fire  in  the  office." 

"I  expect  there  will  be  five  of  them,  Mr. 
Winch,"  interpolated  Amos,  coming  to  the  res- 
cue. "  Kirkley,  Thompson,  Finch,  Aymer,  Mon- 
tague—" 


28   THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

There  was  a  grunt  of  disapproval  from  Mr. 
Wilkie  as  the  last  name  was  mentioned.  Mr. 
Montague  was  his  employer. 

"Yon  felly!"  he  observed  darkly.  "Aha! 
Mphm!" 

Then  he  relapsed  into  silence.  It  was  upon 
such  safe  utterances  as  these  that  Mr.  Wilkie's 
reputation  for  profound  wisdom  was  based. 

"Is  that  all?"  said  Winch.  "Because  if  it  is, 
I'll  undertake  to  learn  that  lot  right  enough. 
Kirkley,  of  course,  is  just  an  empty-headed  aristo- 
crat: he  don't  count.  Then  that  Finch  —  he's 
too  cautious  to  do  anything.  We  can  talk  Thomp- 
son round  all  right:  done  it  half  a  dozen  times 
meself.  Aymer  never  knows  his  own  mind  two 
minutes  together,  and  Moses  is  a  coward.  But  is 
that  all?  Ain't  the  big  man  going  to  be  there? 
He's  the  lad  that  counts  in  that  crowd." 

"He  was  away  in  London  last  week,"  said  Ent- 
wistle  junior.  "But  you  never  know  —  >: 

"Wallowing  in  the  vice  and  luxury  of  the 
metropolis ! "  chanted  Mr.  Brash  suddenly,  as  if 
from  some  internal  missal.  "  The  master  absent, 
squandering  his  tainted  millions,  while  we  stay 
here  and  starve!  If  I  was  a  Member  o'  Parlia- 
ment —  ' 

"Talk  sense,"  said  Amos  Entwistle  curtly. 
"He  may  be  back  for  all  we  know.  Anyway, 
they're  certain  to  bring  him  up  if  they  can,  be- 


WANTED,  A  MAN  29 

cause  they  know  they  can't  do  without  him. 
Mind  that  tank-engine,  father." 

He  impelled  his  aged  parent,  who,  oblivious  to 
delirious  whistling,  was  resolutely  obstructing  the 
progress  of  a  diminutive  locomotive  hauling  a 
string  of  trucks,  on  to  safer  ground. 

"  Well,  we  '11  hope  for  the  best,"  said  Mr.  Winch 
piously.  "It  would  be  something  if  he  were  to 
come  late,  even.  Give  me  twenty  minutes  with 
the  rest  before  he  can  get  his  oar  in,  and  I  '11  un- 
dertake to  make  them  outvote  him." 

By  this  time  the  deputation  had  arrived  at  the 
managerial  offices,  and  five  minutes  later  they 
were  admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  Board.  They 
did  not  know  that  they  had  been  immediately 
preceded  by  an  orange-coloured  envelope,  which 
was  eagerly  torn  open  by  Lord  Kirkley,  the  dep- 
uty chairman. 

"Good  egg!"  observed  his  lordship  with  a  sigh 
of  heartfelt  relief.  "Juggernaut's  coming  —  by 
motor." 

A  gentle  murmur  of  satisfaction  was  audible. 
Evidently  the  Board  felt  the  need  of  a  little  stiff- 
ening. We  may  as  well  describe  them. 

The  Marquis  of  Kirkley  was  more  accustomed 
to  exercising  a  kindly  despotism  over  rustics  who 
lived  contentedly  on  fourteen  shillings  a  week 
than  to  splitting  hairs  with  unbending  mechanics 
earning  four  pounds,  whose  views  on  the  relations 


30    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

between  master  and  man  were  dictated  by  a  cast- 
iron  bureaucracy,  and  who  regarded  not  the  elas- 
tic laws  of  Give  and  Take.  He  was  a  handsome, 
breezy,  kind-hearted  patrician  of  thirty -four,  and 
considered  Trades  Unions  a  damned  interfering 
nuisance. 

James  Crisp  was  a  solicitor,  and  represented 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Kilchester,  beneath  the 
very  foundation  of  whose  mighty  Cathedral  ran  a 
very  profitable  little  seam  of  coal,  which  was 
chiefly  responsible  for  making  the  Bishopric  of 
the  Diocesan  one  of  the  richest  ecclesiastical 
plums  in  England.  He  was  a  shrewd  man  of  busi- 
ness, probably  the  best  qualified  of  those  present 
to  take  the  lead  in  the  present  instance.  Conse- 
quently he  remained  studiously  in  the  back- 
ground. He  regarded  Trades  Unions  as  inevitable, 
but  by  no  means  invulnerable. 

Sir  Nigel  Thompson  had  inherited  great  pos- 
sessions, including  a  colliery,  from  his  father. 
There  was  no  vice  in  him,  but  he  loved  coal  about 
as  much  as  a  schoolboy  loves  irregular  verbs,  and 
his  only  passions  in  life  were  old  furniture  and 
chemical  research.  He  attended  under  compul- 
sion, having  torn  himself  from  his  comfortable 
house  in  Grosvenor  Street  at  the  bidding  of  his 
manager,  in  whose  hands  he  was  reported  (not 
altogether  unjustly)  to  be  as  wax.  He  was  full  of 
theoretical  enthusiasm  for  Trades  Unions,  which 


WANTED,  A  MAN  31 

he  identified  in  some  mysterious  way  with  the 
liberty  of  the  individual,  but  wished  mildly  that 
they  could  contrive  to  settle  its  affairs  without 
dragging  him  north  from  London.  Altogether  a 
pleasant  but  entirely  useless  member  of  the 
Board. 

Mr.  Alfred  Aymer  was  the  owner  of  Cherry 
Hill  Colliery.  He  was  middle-aged,  timorous,  and 
precipitate.  Left  to  himself,  he  would  probably 
have  made  a  kind  and  fair-dealing  employer.  But 
it  was  his  misfortune  to  be  so  constituted  that  his 
opinions  on  any  subject  were  invariably  those  of 
the  last  man  with  whom  he  had  discussed  it. 
Consequently  his  line  of  action  in  the  affairs  of 
life  was  something  in  the  nature  of  an  alternating 
electric  current.  After  an  interview  with  his  man- 
ager he  would  issue  a  decree  of  unparalleled  fe- 
rocity: after  five  minutes  with  a  deputation  of 
employes  he  would  rescind  all  previous  resolutions 
and  promise  a  perfectly  fabulous  bonus  next  pay- 
day. In  his  present  company  he  was  an  adaman- 
tine Capitalist,  and  regarded  Trades  Unions  as 
the  most  pernicious  of  institutions. 

Last  of  all  came  Mr.  Montague,  whose  surname 
at  an  earlier  and  less  distinguished  period  in  his 
history  had  probably  rhymed  with  "  noses."  He 
too  came  from  London,  where  he  earned  a  liveli- 
hood by  acquiring  the  controlling  interest  in  vari- 
ous commercial  ventures  and  making  these  pay 


32    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

cent  per  cent.  He  had  recently  become  proprietor 
of  Marbledown  Colliery,  and  it  was  said  that  he 
was  making  a  better  thing  out  of  it  than  his  em- 
ployes. He  regarded  Trades  Unions  as  an  imper- 
tinent infringement  of  the  right  of  the  upper 
classes  to  keep  the  lower  classes  in  their  proper 
places.  From  which  the  intelligent  reader  will 
have  no  difficulty  in  deciding  to  which  class  Mr. 
Montague  considered  that  he  himself  belonged. 

The  deputation  was  introduced  with  the  usual 
formalities.  Its  object  was  to  effect  the  reinstate- 
ment of  two  employes  at  Marbledown  Colliery, 
an  engineman  and  a  hewer,  who  had  been  sum- 
marily dismissed  from  their  positions  for  endeav- 
ouring, in  a  society  whose  relations  had  never 
been  of  the  most  cordial,  to  heighten  dissension 
between  master  and  man. 

Mr.  Tom  Winch's  version  of  the  case,  delivered 
with  great  wealth  of  detail  and  a  good  deal  of  un- 
necessary violence,  was  different.  The  men,  it 
appeared,  were  models  of  what  enginemen  and 
hewers  should  be.  Their  sole  offence  consisted  in 
having  incurred  the  dislike  of  the  mine  manager, 
Mr.  Walker — whether  through  their  own  sturdy 
independence  as  true-born  Englishmen  (applause 
from  Mr.  Brash),  or  the  natural  jealousy  of  an  in- 
competent official  towards  two  able  and  increas- 
ingly prominent  subordinates,  it  was  not  for  Mr. 
Winch  to  say.  Proceeding,  the  orator  warmed  to 


WANTED,  A  MAN  33 

his  work,  and  mentioned  that  one  man  was  as 
good  as  another.  Indeed,  but  for  the  merest 
accident  of  fortune,  Lord  Kirkley  himself  might 
be  delving  for  coal  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
what  time  Messrs.  Conlin  and  Murton,  the  dis- 
missed employes,  sat  in  the  House  of  Lords  smok- 
ing cigars  and  drinking  champagne. 

After  this  magnificent  and  conciliatory  perora- 
tion, Mr.  Winch  fell  back  into  line  with  his  com- 
panions, amid  the  sotto  voce  commendations  of 
Messrs.  Brash  and  Killick.  Mr.  Aymer,  who  had 
been  taking  notes  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  tore  it  up 
with  a  resigned  air  of  finality.  The  case  was 
clear:  these  poor  fellows  must  be  reinstated. 

The  Chairman  conferred  briefly  with  Mr.  Crisp. 

"Would  any  other  of  you  gentlemen  like  to  say 
anything?"  he  enquired. 

The  question  was  communicated  to  Mr.  Ent- 
wistle  senior,  who  stepped  forward  and  delivered 
himself  of  a  courtly  but  rambling  discourse,  con- 
sisting chiefly  of  reminiscences  of  something  por- 
tentous but  unintelligible  which  had  happened 
forty  years  ago,  and  even  to  the  most  irrelevant 
mind  presented  no  sort  of  bearing  upon  the  case 
whatsoever. 

After  this  Lord  Kirkley  replied.  His  remarks 
were  not  convincing,  for  he  was  hampered  in  deal- 
ing with  the  question  by  complete  inability  to 
understand  where  the  men's  grievance  came  in, 


34    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

and  said  so.  The  owners,  he  explained,  tried  to  do 
the  fair  thing,  and  most  of  them  did  considerably 
more.  Sick-funds,  pensions,  benevolent  schemes, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  did  n't  they  know?  He 
quite  admitted  that  an  employer  of  labour  had 
grave  responsibilities  and  duties  laid  upon  him, 
and  he  for  one  had  always  tried  to  live  up  to 
them.  But,  hang  it!  surely  an  employer  had 
the  right  to  get  rid  of  a  couple  of  fellows  who  went 
about  preaching  anarchy  and  red  revolution  in 
all  the  public-houses  in  the  district  —  what?  He 
did  not  mind  ordinary  grousing.  It  did  everybody 
good  to  blow  off  steam  periodically :  he  did  it  him- 
self. But  there  was  grousing  and  grousing:  and 
when  it  came  to  the  sort  of  game  that  Messrs. 
Conlin  and  Murton  were  playing,  it  was  his  lord- 
ship's opinion  that  a  ne  plus  ultra  of  thickness  had 
been  attained. 

The  Chairman  concluded  a  somewhat  collo- 
quial address  amid  a  deathly  silence,  and  the  dep- 
utation and  the  Board  glared  uncomfortably  at 
one  another.  An  impasse  had  been  reached,  it 
was  clear. 

"It's  all  very  well,  gentlemen,"  broke  in  Kil- 
lick  suddenly,  "for  you  aristocrats  —  ' 

Lord  Kirkley,  who  was  not  without  a  certain 
sense  of  proportion,  glanced  involuntarily  at  Mr. 
Montague  and  then  at  Mr.  Killick.  Did  this  om- 
niscient and  self-opinionated  son  of  toil  really  see 


WANTED,  A  MAN  35 

no  moral  difference  between  a  peer  of  the  realm, 
with  centuries  of  clean-bred  ancestry  behind  him, 
and  a  man  who  wore  diamond  rings  and  elastic- 
sided  boots?  Mr.  Montague  looked  up,  and  re- 
garded Mr.  Killick  with  something  akin  to  affec- 
tion. 

There  was  a  sudden  rumble  underneath  the 
windows,  accompanied  by  the  hoot  of  a  motor- 
horn. 

The  drama  having  run  itself  to  a  deadlock,  the 
deus  had  duly  arrived  —  in  his  machina. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   WHEELS   OF   JUGGERNAUT 

THERE  was  a  dead  silence,  unbroken  until  Jug- 
gernaut entered  the  room. 

"Good-morning,  gentlemen,"  he  said  briskly. 
"I  am  glad  to  see  that  the  deputation  has  only 
just  arrived." 

He  turned  to  the  clerk  who  had  shown  him  in. 

"Andrews,"  he  said,  "get  chairs  for  these  gen- 
tlemen, and  then  we  can  get  to  business." 

Chairs  were  brought,  and  the  deputation, 
which  had  been  balancing  itself  on  alternate  legs 
for  nearly  half  an  hour,  sat  down,  with  an  en- 
hanced sense  of  comfort  and  importance,  to  what 
they  realised  at  once  was  to  be  the  interview 
proper. 

Juggernaut  took  the  seat  at  the  middle  of  the 
table  vacated  by  Lord  Kirkley ,  and  enquired :  — 

"  Has  any  one  spoken  yet?  " 

Progress  was  reported  by  Mr.  Crisp. 

"I  wonder  if  I  might  trouble  the  deputation 
again,"  said  the  Chairman.  "  Not  you,  Mr.  Winch, 
thank  you!"  as  that  Demosthenes  cleared  his 
throat  in  a  threatening  manner.  "In  the  first 
place,  you  don't  represent  the  men  in  any  sense. 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    37 

In  fact»  considering  that  you  are  engaged  in  no 
employment  in  this  district,  I  think  it  would  have 
been  much  wiser  on  the  part  of  those  responsible 
for  this  deputation  to  have  left  you  out  alto- 
gether. But  I  suppose  you  had  been  sent  down 
here  by  your  organisation,  and  they  had  to  have 
you." 

"Gentlemen  of  the  Board,"  exclaimed  Mr. 
Winch  indignantly,  "I  appeal  —  " 

"Don't  trouble,  really,  Mr.  Winch,"  broke  in 
Juggernaut  with  inflexible  cheerfulness.  'You 
see,  I  know  exactly  what  you  are  going  to  say.  I 
have  heard  it  so  often  in  other  places  where  you 
have  been  kind  enough  to  come  forward  and 
champion  the  cause  —  er  —  of  the  oppressed  mil- 
lions of  this  country." 

A  muffled  sound  proceeded  from  the  interior 
of  Mr.  Wilkie  —  his  first  contribution  to  the  de- 
bate —  and  the  Chairman  proceeded. 

"I  wonder  if  Mr.  Entwistle  junior  would  kindly 
state  the  facts." 

Amos  Entwistle,  rising  from  his  seat,  re-stated 
the  case  of  the  two  men.  They  were  competent 
and  industrious  workmen,  he  maintained,  and  so 
long  as  they  gave  satisfaction  in  their  situations 
their  private  lives  and  leisure  occupations  were 
entirely  their  own  concern.  Possibly  their  views 
on  the  relations  of  Labour  and  Capital  were  ex- 
treme, but  the  speaker  begged  respectfully  to 


point  out  that  there  were  extremists  on  both  sides ; 
and  since  many  employers  might  and  did  regard 
the  men  they  paid  as  dirt  beneath  their  feet,  it 
seemed  only  natural  that  a  section  of  the  men 
should  regard  their  employers  as  bullies  and  ty- 
rants of  the  worst  type.  Mr.  Entwistle  followed  up 
this  undoubted  home-thrust  with  a  request  for  a 
categorical  list  of  the  offences  alleged  against  the 
two  men,  and  solemnly  but  respectfully  warned 
the  Board  against  risking  a  serious  upheaval  by 
endeavouring  to  stifle  legitimate  criticism  of  its 
actions.  With  apologies  for  plain  speaking  he  re- 
sumed his  seat,  and  Mr.  Aymer  tore  up  a  sheet  of 
paper  upon  which  he  had  commenced  operations 
on  the  arrival  of  the  Chairman. 

"Would  any  other  gentleman  like  to  say  any- 
thing?" enquired  Juggernaut.  "Mr.  Brash?  Mr. 
Wilkie?" 

No,  the  gentlemen  addressed  had  nothing  to 
say.  Their  forte  was  plainly  that  of  chorus. 

"Very  well,"  said  Juggernaut.  "In  the  first 
place  I  am  going  to  accede  to  Mr.  Entwistle's 
perfectly  just  request  that  a  definite  reason  should 
be  given  for  the  dismissal  of  these  men.  I  agree 
with  him  that  it  is  a  foolish  thing  to  stifle  legiti- 
mate criticism.  Unfortunately  I  don't  agree  with 
him  that  the  criticisms  of  Messrs.  Conlin  and 
Murton  are  legitimate.  I  have  been  making  en- 
quiries into  the  antecedents  of  these  two.  Mur- 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    39 

ton  is  a  paid  agitator.  He  is  not  a  local  man.  He 
came  here  less  than  a  year  ago  and  has  been  mak- 
ing deliberate  mischief  ever  since.  He  has  money 
to  spend:  he  backs  his  arguments  with  beer.  I 
should  n't  be  surprised  if  he  drew  his  salary  from 
the  organisation  which  retains  your  services,  Mr. 
Winch." 

Mr.  Winch's  small  eyes  began  to  protrude.  He 
did  not  relish  this  line  of  argument.  In  dealing 
with  boards  and  other  representatives  of  bloated 
Capital  he  preferred  to  keep  to  the  high  moral 
and  sentimental  plane  —  the  sufferings  of  the 
downtrodden  sons  of  Labour,  the  equality  of  all 
men  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  so  on.  Mundane 
personalities,  coupled  with  the  suggestion  that  he, 
a  high  priest  of  altruism,  was  making  a  good  thing 
out  of  his  exertions  on  behalf  of  his  fellow  toilers, 
took  him  below  the  belt,  he  considered. 

"Conlin,"  continued  Juggernaut,  disregarding 
the  fermenting  Mr.  Winch,  "seems  to  be  a  com- 
paratively sincere  and  honest  grumbler.  He  has 
realised  that  this  is  an  unjust  world,  and  he  wants 
to  put  it  right  by  Act  of  Parliament.  Consequently 
he  goes  about  advocating  certain  special  and  par- 
ticular forms  of  legislation,  which  if  they  came  into 
being  would  benefit  about  one  member  of  the 
community  in  a  hundred  and  be  grossly  unfair 
to  the  other  ninety-nine.  He  has  not  yet  discov- 
ered for  himself  that  the  aim  of  all  legislation 


40    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

must  be  to  benefit  the  type  and  not  the  individ- 
ual. That  is  the  rock  upon  which  all  your  friends 
split,  Mr.  Winch.  You  are  always  trying  to  legis- 
late for  special  cases,  and  it  can't  be  done.  I  quite 
agree  with  you  that  the  conditions  of  labour  in 
parts  of  this  country  are  deplorable.  We  all  want 
to  put  them  right.  But  there  are  two  things  we 
cannot  do.  We  can't  cure  them  in  a  hurry,  and 
we  can't  cure  them  by  swallowing  quack  medi- 
cines. What  we  have  to  do  is  to  set  to  work  on 
systematic  lines  and  go  on  working,  with  patience 
and  a  sense  of  proportion,  until  our  whole  social 
fabric  develops  into  a  sounder  and  more  healthy 
condition.  That  requires  time,  and  time  requires 
patience,  and  patience  requires  common  sense, 
and  common  sense  is  a  thing  which  is  deplorably 
scarce  in  this  world,  Mr.  Winch.  We  are  marching 
on  to  a  better  state  of  things  every  year,  but 
every  bit  of  unsound,  panic-stricken,  vote-catch- 
ing legislation  —  Right-to- Work  Bills,  Unem- 
ployment Acts,  and  so  on  —  throws  us  back  a 
step,  because  its  tendency  is  to  remove  the  symp- 
tom instead  of  curing  the  disease.  Now  symptoms 
are  very  valuable  assets.  They  give  us  reliable 
and  necessary  information,  which  is  more  than  can 
be  said  of  most  intelligence  departments.  If  ever 
you  have  such  a  vulgar  thing  as  a  pain  in  your 
stomach,  Mr.  Winch,  that  is  a  kindly  hint  from 
Nature  that  there  is  something  wrong  with  the 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    41 

works.  If  you  drink  two  of  whiskey  hot  the  pain 
may  cease,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  real 
cause  of  the  trouble  has  been  removed.  In  effect, 
you  have  merely  put  back  the  danger-signal  to 
safety  without  removing  the  danger.  That  is  just 
what  all  this  despicable,  hand-to-mouth,  time- 
serving legislation  that  you  and  your  friends  are 
trying  to  force  upon  a  weak  Government  is  doing 
for  the  country  to-day." 

The  speaker  paused.  The  deputation  wore  a 
distinctly  chastened  appearance.  Mr.  Aymer  was 
engaged  upon  a  third  sheet  of  notes.  Sir  Nigel 
Thompson  was  working  out  a  chemical  formula 
on  the  back  of  an  envelope. 

"Let  us  get  back  to  the  point,  sir,"  said  Amos 
Entwistle  doggedly.  "I  agree  with  a  great  deal  of 
what  you  say  —  " 

"Shame!"  interpolated  Mr.  Killick  suddenly. 

" — But  we  came  here  to  ask  for  the  reinstate- 
ment of  these  two  men,  and  not  to  discuss  social 
problems." 

"  Granted,  all  the  time,"  said  Juggernaut  cheer- 
fully. "I  admit  that  I  have  not  made  Messrs. 
Conlin  and  Murton  my  Alpha  and  Omega  in  these 
remarks  of  mine;  but  that  is  because  I  deliber- 
ately went  back  to  first  principles  instead  of  cut- 
ting into  the  middle  of  things.  Now  for  your  re- 
quest: you  want  an  answer:  here  it  is.  The  two 
men  cannot  be  reinstated  under  any  circum- 


42    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

stances  whatsoever.  I  confess  I  am  rather  sorry 
for  Conlin:  he  is  in  a  different  class  from  Murton. 
But  he  is  tarred  with  the  same  brush,  and  he  must 

go." 

"Take  care,  Sir  John,"  broke  in  Mr.  Winch,  in 
the  declamatory  bray  which  he  reserved  for  ex- 
treme crises.  "Don't  push  us  too  hard!  What  if 
a  strike  was  to  be  proclaimed  at  Marbledown 
Colliery?  You  would  n't  like  that,  Mr.  Montague ! 
You  have  a  bad  enough  name  in  the  district  as  it 
is.  You  grind  your  'eel  —  " 

"Mr.  Winch,"  said  Juggernaut  in  a  voice  of 
thunder,  "I  must  ask  you  to  address  yourself  to 
me.  This  matter  has  been  taken  out  of  Mr.  Mon- 
tague's hands  by  the  combined  action  of  the 
Owners'  Association,  so  if  you  have  any  strictures 
to  offer  they  must  be  laid  upon  me  as  represent- 
ing the  Association  collectively.  As  for  striking 
—  well,  you  struck  before,  you  know.  I  don't 
think  any  of  us  have  forgotten  that  winter  — 
masters  or  men!" 

"We  nearly  beat  you  then,"  said  Killick  hotly. 

"That,"  retorted  Mr.  Montague,  suddenly 
breaking  into  the  debate,  "  was  because  some  sen- 
timental fool  sent  food  and  necessaries  to  your 
wives." 

"It's  the  women  and  children  that  pay  for 
strikes,  you  know,  Mr.  Winch,"  said  Mr.  Crisp, 
speaking  for  the  first  time  —  "  not  you  men.  You 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    43 

can  do  without  beer  and  baccy  at  a  pinch,  but 
your  families  must  have  groceries  and  fire.  If 
they  had  not  been  kept  going  by  their  unknown 
benefactor,  the  strike  would  have  collapsed  as 
soon  as  the  Union  funds  gave  out." 

"Perhaps  they  will  be  kept  going  again,"  said 
Amos  Entwistle  quietly. 

"They  won't,"  said  Juggernaut  emphatically; 
"you  can  take  my  word  for  that,  Mr.  Entwistle. 
I  have  seen  to  it.  And  I  may  add  that  if  you  con- 
sider it  advisable  to  proclaim  a  strike  at  any  pit, 
the  owners  on  their  part  might  find  it  necessary 
to  declare  a  lockout  at  all  the  collieries  in  the  dis- 
trict. If  men  can  combine,  so  can  masters." 

There  was  a  staggered  silence.  Even  the  Board 
were  hardly  prepared  for  this.  Juggernaut  had  so 
dominated  the  situation,  since  his  arrival,  that 
one  or  two  —  Mr.  Montague  in  particular — were 
beginning  to  wonder  rather  peevishly  why  they 
had  been  admitted  to  the  meeting.  But  Mr.  Crisp 
leaned  back  and  took  snuff  contentedly.  He  ap- 
preciated strong  measures,  though  he  was  averse 
to  initiating  them. 

Still,  the  temper  of  the  meeting  was  rising. 
Killick  broke  out  furiously.  It  was  a  burning 
shame,  a  monstrous  iniquity,  he  declared,  that 
men  who  had  never  done  an  honest  day's  work  in 
their  lives  should  be  enabled,  simply  because  they 
had  money  in  their  pockets,  to  force  humiliating 


44    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

conditions  on  a  majority  who  had  no  alternative 
but  to  submit  or  starve.  He  spoke  with  all  the 
conviction  that  absolute  sincerity  carries,  but  the 
effect  of  his  philippic  was  not  enhanced  by  the 
marginal  comments  of  his  colleague,  Mr.  Brash, 
who  kept  up  a  running  fire  of  sotto  voce  references 
to  bloody-minded  tyrants,  champagne,  ballet- 
girls,  and  other  equally  relevant  topics,  with  a 
persistence  and  enthusiasm  which  would  have 
proved  embarrassing  to  a  more  self-conscious  and 
less  frenzied  Demosthenes  than  Mr.  Killick. 

When  both  solo  and  obbligato  had  subsided, 
Juggernaut  spoke  again. 

"It  is  one  of  the  most  common  delusions  of 
men  of  your  way  of  thinking,  Mr.  Killick,  to  im- 
agine that  the  only  kind  of  work  worthy  of  the 
name  is  manual  labour.  Personally,  I  have  tried 
both.  For  two  years  after  I  came  down  from  the 
University,  I  worked  for  experience's  sake  in  a 
pit  not  far  from  here.  I  went  down  with  my  shift 
daily  and  worked  full  time;  but  I  assure  you  that 
those  two  years  were  far  from  being  the  most  la- 
borious of  my  life." 

:<  Your  case  was  different,  sir,"  said  Amos  Ent- 
wistle,  with  a  practical  man's  quick  perception  of 
his  opponent's  weak  points.  ';<  You  were  doing  it 
for  pleasure,  to  acquire  experience  —  not  to  earn 
your  bread.  You  could  look  forward  to  some- 
thing better  later  on.'* 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    45 

"And  so  can  every  man!"  replied  Juggernaut. 
"Each  one  of  us  is  able  if  he  likes  to  work  his  way 
up  and  up  and  up;  and  the  lower  he  starts  the 
greater  is  his  range  of  opportunity.  He  has  the 
whole  ladder  to  climb  instead  of  a  few  paltry 
rungs,  as  is  the  case  of  a  man  born  near  the  top. 
Let  him  think  of  that,  and  be  thankful!" 

The  Chairman's  sombre  eyes  glowed.  His  tone 
of  raillery  was  gone :  he  was  in  sober  earnest  now. 
To  him  poverty  and  riches  were  mere  labels :  the 
salt  of  life  lay  in  the  overcoming  of  its  difficulties. 

But  Amos  Entwistle  was  a  man  of  tough  fibre 
—  by  far  the  strongest  man,  next  to  the  Chair- 
man, in  that  assemblage. 

"You  can't  deny,  sir,"  he  persisted  doggedly, 
"that  it  is  very  difficult  for  a  poor  man  to  rise. 
His  employers  don't  help  him  much.  They  are 
best  satisfied  with  a  man  who  keeps  his  proper 
station,  as  they  call  it." 

"  Tyrants ! "  interpolated  Mr.  Winch  hastily. 

"Star  Chamber!"  added  Mr.  Brash,  a  propos 
de  bottes. 

"Tyrants?  Star  Chamber?"  Juggernaut  sur- 
veyed the  interrupter  quizzically.  "Here  is  a 
question  for  you,  Mr.  Brash.  Which  is  the  worse, 
the  tyranny  of  the  harsh  employer  who  gathers 
where  he  has  not  strawed,  or  the  tyranny  of  a 
Trades  Union  which  a  man  is  forced  to  join,  which 
compels  the  best  worker  to  slow  down  his  pace  to 


46    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

that  of  the  worst,  and  frequently  compels  him  to 
come  out  on  strike  over  some  question  upon  which 
he  is  perfectly  satisfied?  I  won't  attempt  to  place 
them  in  order  of  merit,  but  I  should  feel  inclined 
to  bracket  —  " 

"Trades  Unionism,"  interrupted  Mr.  Winch, 
who  was  beginning  to  feel  himself  unduly  ex- 
cluded from  the  present  symposium,  "is  the  first 
step  towards  the  complete  emancipation  of  La- 
bour" —  he  smacked  his  lips,  as  over  a  savoury 
bakemeat  —  "from  the  degrading  shackles  of 
Capital.  Every  man  his  own  master!" 

Juggernaut  nodded  his  head  slowly. 

"Ye-es,"  he  said.  "That  sounds  admirable. 
But  what  does  it  mean,  exactly?  As  far  as  I  can 
see,  it  means  that  every  one  who  is  at  present  a  la- 
bourer is  ultimately  going  to  become  a  capitalist. 
In  that  case  it  rather  looks  as  if  there  would  be  a 
shortage  of  hands  if  there  was  work  to  be  done. 
Your  Utopia,  Mr.  Winch,  appears  to  me  to  resem- 
ble the  Grand  Army  of  Hayti,  which  consists  of 
five  hundred  privates  and  eleven  hundred  gener- 
als. No,  no,  you  must  bear  in  mind  this  fact,  that 
ever  since  the  world  began,  mankind  has  been  di- 
vided up  into  masters  and  men,  and  will  continue 
to  be  so  divided  until  the  end  of  time.  What  we 
—  you  and  I  —  have  to  do  is  to  adjust  the  rela- 
tions between  the  two  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  make 
the  conditions  fair  to  both.  I  don 't  say  that  em- 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    47 

ployers  are  n't  frequently  most  high-handed  and 
tyrannical,  but  I  also  say  that  employes  are  ex- 
traordinarily touchy  and  thinskinned.  I  think  it 
chiefly  arises  from  a  sort  of  distorted  notion  that 
there  is  something  degrading  and  undignified  in 
obeying  an  order.  Why,  man^  obedience  and  dis- 
cipline are  the  very  lifeblood  of  every  institution 
worthy  of  the  name.  They  are  no  class  affair, 
either.  I  have  seen  the  Captain  of  a  Company 
stand  at  attention  without  winking  for  ten  min- 
utes, and  receive  a  damning  from  his  Colonel  that 
no  non-commissioned  Officer  in  the  Service  would 
have  dreamed  of  administering  to  a  private  of  the 
line.  Master  and  man  each  hold  equally  honour- 
able positions;  and  what  you  must  drum  into  the 
minds  of  your  associates,  gentlemen,  —  I  'm 
speaking  to  the  Board  as  much  as  to  the  Deputa- 
tion, —  is  the  fact  that  the  interests  of  both  are 
identical,  instead  of  being  as  far  apart  as  the  poles, 
which  appears  to  be  your  present  impression. 
Neither  can  exist  without  the  other.  So  far  you 
have  imbibed  only  half  that  truth.  You  reiterate 
with  distressing  frequency,  Mr.  Winch,  the  fact 
that  Capital  cannot  exist  without  Labour.  Per- 
fectly true.  Now  try  to  absorb  into  your  system 
the  fact  —  equally  important,  to  a  hair's  breadth 
—  that  Labour  cannot  exist  without  Capital. 
Each  depends  upon  the  other  for  existence,  and 
what  we  have  to  do  is  to  balance  and  balance  and 


48    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

balance,  employing  a  sense  of  proportion,  propor- 
tion, proportion!" 

Juggernaut's  fist  descended  with  a  crash  upon 
the  table,  and  for  a  minute  he  was  silent  —  free- 
wheeling, so  to  speak,  over  the  pulverised  re- 
mains of  Mr.  Winch.  Presently  he  continued, 
with  one  of  his  rare  smiles :  — 

"A  Frenchman  once  said  that  an  Englishman 
begins  by  making  a  speech  and  ends  by  preaching 
a  sermon.  I  am  afraid  I  have  justified  the  gibe, 
but  it 's  a  good  thing  to  thrash  these  matters  out. 
I  don't  deny  that  the  average  employer  is  in  the 
habit  of  giving  his  employes  their  bare  pound  of 
flesh  in  the  way  of  wages  and  no  more.  But  I 
think  the  employe  only  has  himself  to  blame  for 
that.  If  you  invoke  the  assistance  of  the  law 
against  your  neighbour,  that  neighbour  will  give 
you  precisely  as  much  as  the  law  compels  him  to 
give.  Well,  that  is  what  Organised  Labour  has 
done.  It  has  its  Trades  Union,  its  Workmen's 
Compensation  and  Employers'  Liability,  and  so 
on ;  and  lately  it  has  gouged  out  of  a  myopic  Gov- 
ernment a  scheme  of  old-age  pensions,  to  be  eligi- 
ble for  which  a  man  must  on  no  account  have 
exercised  any  kind  of  thrift  throughout  his  work- 
ing life.  If  he  has,  he  is  disqualified.  All  this 
legislation  enables  you  to  get  the  half-nelson  on 
your  employer.  Under  the  circumstances  you 
can  hardly  expect  him  to  throw  in  benevolences 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    49 

as  well.  You  can't  have  your  cake  and  eat  it.  The 
old  personal  relations  between  master  and  man 
are  dead, — dead  as  Queen  Anne, — and  with  them 
has  died  the  master's  sense  of  moral  responsibil- 
ity for  the  welfare  of  those  dependent  on  him." 

"Time,  too!  Degradation!  Feudal  System!" 
observed  the  ever  ready  Mr.  Killick. 

"Well,  perhaps;  but  the  Feudal  System  had  its 
points,  Mr.  Killick.  It  fostered  one  or  two  homely 
and  healthy  virtues  like  benevolence  and  loyalty 
and  pride  of  race;  and  I  don't  think  a  man-at- 
arms  ever  lost  his  self-respect  or  felt  degraded 
because  he  lived  in  time  of  peace  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  whom  he  fol- 
lowed in  time  of  war.  Yes,  I  for  one  rather  regret 
the  passing  of  the  old  order.  Listen,  and  I  will  tell 
you  a  story.  Forty  years  ago  Cherry  Hill  Pit  was 
flooded  —  flooded  for  nearly  three  months  during 
a  bitter  hard  winter.  Sir  Nigel  Thompson's 
father,  the  late  baronet  —  " 

Sir  Nigel,  who  was  puzzling  out  a  specially  com- 
plicated formula,  suddenly  looked  up.  He  had  an 
idea  that  his  name  had  been  mentioned;  but  as 
every  one  present  appeared  to  be  listening  most 
intently  to  the  Chairman,  he  resumed  his  en- 
grossing occupation  with  a  sigh  of  relief. 

* —  Paid  full  wages  during  the  whole  of  that 
time;  and  as  coal  was,  naturally,  unobtainable  in 
the  village,  he  imported  sufficient  to  supply  the 


50    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

needs  of  the  whole  community.  Not  a  house  in 
all  Cherry  Hill  lacked  its  kitchen  fire  or  its  Sun- 
day dinner  during  all  those  weeks.  That  was  be- 
fore the  days  of  Employers'  Liability,  gentlemen! 
If  a  similar  disaster  were  to  occur  to-day  I  doubt 
if  Sir  Nigel  here  would  feel  morally  bound  to  do 
anything  for  such  an  independent  and  self-suffi- 
cient community.  The  present  state  of  things 
may  safeguard  you  against  the  ungenerous  em- 
ployer, but  it  eliminates  the  milk  of  human  kind- 
ness from  our  mutual  transactions,  and  that  is 
always  a  regrettable  state  of  affairs.  That  is  all, 
gentlemen.  You  have  our  last  word  in  this  mat- 
ter. These  two  men  must  go.  If  you  would  like  to 
withdraw  to  the  next  room  for  a  few  minutes  and 
consider  whether  you  have  anything  further  to 
say,  we  shall  be  glad  to  wait  your  convenience 
here." 

The  deputation  rose  and  filed  solemnly  from 
the  room,  and  the  Board  were  left  alone. 

Presently  Mr.  Aymer  observed  timidly:  — 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  don't  you  think  we  might  let 
Conlin  stay,  and  content  ourselves  with  dismiss- 
ing Murton?" 

"Afraid  not,"  said  Juggernaut.  "It's  a  bit 
hard  on  Conlin,  but  we  have  to  consider  the  great- 
est good  of  the  greatest  number.  He's  a  plague- 
spot,  and  if  we  don't  eradicate  him  he  '11  spread. 
Do  you  agree,  Kirkley?" 


"Bad  luck  on  the  poor  devil,  but  I  think  you 
are  right,"  assented  his  lordship. 

"Crisp?" 

Mr.  Crisp  nodded. 

"Nigel?" 

Sir  Nigel  Thompson  looked  up  from  his  seventh 
envelope  with  a  contented  sigh. 

"I  have  it  at  last,"  he  said.  "It's  a  perfectly 
simple  solution,  really,  but  the  obvious  often  es- 
capes one's  notice  owing  to  its  very  proximity. 
The  eye  is  looking  further  afield.  — Eh  —  what? 
My  decision?  I  agree  implicitly  with  you,  Jack 
—  that  is,  gentlemen,  I  support  the  Chairman  in 
his  view  of  the  case." 

And  this  vigilant  counsellor  collected  his  en- 
velopes and  stuffed  them  into  his  pocket. 

The  Chairman  continued. 

"Montague?" 

"Before  I  answer  that  question,"  began  Mr. 
Montague,  "I  should  like  to  protetht  —  protest, 
I  mean  —  against  the  very  arbitrary  fashion  in 
which  you  have  conducted  this  meeting,  Mr. 
Chairman.  You  have  taken  the  case  out  of  our 
hands  in  a  manner  which  I  consider  most  unwar- 
rantable; and,  speaking  as  the  actual  employer  of 
the  two  men  —  " 

Juggernaut  swung  rather  deliberately  round  in 
his  chair. 

"Mr.  Montague,"  he  said,  "you  got  yourself 


52    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

into  a  hole,  and  you  called  —  no,  howled  —  for  a 
meeting  of  directors  to  come  and  pull  you  out. 
These  agitators  settled  down  in  your  district  be- 
cause they  knew  that  it  was  the  most  fertile  dis- 
trict to  work  in.  You  are  considered,  rightly,  the 
worst  employer  of  labour  here.  You  are  greedy, 
unscrupulous,  and  tyrannical.  It  is  men  like  you 
who  discredit  Capital  in  the  eyes  of  Labour,  and 
make  conciliatory  dealings  between  master  and 
man  almost  an  impossibility.  We  have  bolstered 
you  up  through  a  very  difficult  crisis,  sitting  here 
and  putting  those  poor  fellows,  five  of  whom  are 
infinitely  more  honest  than  you  are,  quite  unde- 
servedly in  the  wrong,  and  imperilling  our  immor- 
tal souls  by  whitewashing  such  employers  as  you. 
Accept  the  situation  and  be  thankful!" 

It  is  said  that  hard  words  break  no  bones. 
Still,  if  you  happen  to  be  a  member  of  a  race 
which  has  endured  hard  words  (to  say  nothing  of 
broken  bones)  for  twenty  centuries;  and  where 
the  hard  words  on  this  particular  occasion  are  de- 
livered by  a  large  man  with  angry  blue  eyes  and  a 
tongue  like  a  whiplash,  you  may  be  forgiven  for 
losing  your  nerve  a  little.  Mr.  Montague  lost  his. 
He  flapped  his  ringed  hands  feebly,  mumbled  in- 
coherently, and  was  understood  to  withdraw  his 
objections  unconditionally. 

"Mr.  Amos  Entwistle,"  announced  a  clerk  at 
the  door. 


THE  WHEELS  OF  JUGGERNAUT    53 

Entwistle  junior  reentered  the  room. 

"I  am  commissioned  to  inform  you,  Mr.  Chair- 
man," he  said,  "that  we  acquiesce  in  your  deci- 
sion; but  under  protest.  I  should  like  to  add,  gen- 
tlemen," he  continued  less  formally  but  none  the 
less  earnestly,  "that  the  Committee  are  very 
much  dissatisfied  with  the  result  of  the  interview. 
I  am  afraid  you  have  n't  heard  the  last  of  this 
trouble.  Good-day,  and  thank  you,  gentlemen ! " 

"What  does  it  all  mean?  Strike  —  eh?"  en- 
quired Lord  Kirkley,  as  he  and  Juggernaut  de- 
scended the  stairs  together  five  minutes  later. 

"Perhaps.  If  so,  we'll  fight." 

"Righto  —  I'm  on!  I  say,  it  was  pretty  smart 
of  you  finding  out  where  those  private  stores  came 
from  last  time.  We  shall  be  able  to  put  the  lid  on 
that  sort  of  thing  in  future  —  what?" 

Juggernaut  nodded,  but  said  no  more. 

Mr.  Crisp,  Sir  Nigel  Thompson,  and  Mr. 
Aymer  walked  across  to  the  latter's  offices  for 
luncheon.  Mr.  Montague  had  gone  home  to 
lunch  by  himself.  He  usually  did  so. 

"The  Chairman  arrived  at  the  meeting  in  the 
nick  of  time,"  said  the  lawyer.  "Kirkley  would 
have  been  no  match  for  Winch." 

"The  Chairman  was  very  inflexible,"  sighed 
Mr.  Aymer,  with  all  a  weak  man's  passion  for 
compromise.  "He  has  a  way  of  brushing  aside 
obstacles  which  can  only  be  described  as  Napo- 


54    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

Iconic.  Is  he  always  within  his  rights  from  a  legal 
point  of  view?" 

"  From  a  legal  point  of  view,  practically  never," 
said  the  lawyer  simply.  "From  a  common-sense 
point  of  view,  practically  always.'* 

"He  is  a  hard  man  —  as  hard  as  flint,"  mused 
Mr.  Aymer.  "  I  wonder  if  he  has  a  soft  side  to  him 
anywhere.  I  wonder,  for  instance,  how  he  would 
treat  a  woman." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Mr.  Crisp. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   DEVIL  A   MONK   WOULD   BE 

THE  first  member  of  the  Rectory  household 
whose  eyes  opened  on  Sunday  morning  was  a  cer- 
tain Mr.  Dawks,  who  has  not  previously  been 
mentioned  in  this  narrative.  He  was  a  dog.  The 
term  may  include  almost  anything,  which  is  per- 
haps fortunate  for  Mr.  Dawks ;  otherwise  it  might 
have  been  necessary  to  class  him  under  some  more 
elastic  heading.  Of  his  ancestry  nothing  was 
known,  though  many  conjectures  could  have 
been  made,  and  most  of  them  would  have  been 
correct.  He  had  been  found  lying  half-dead  in 
a  country  lane  by  Daphne  six  years  ago,  and, 
though  mistaken  at  the  time  for  a  derelict  monkey 
jettisoned  from  some  migratory  hurdy-gurdy, 
had  subsequently  proved  to  be  a  mongrel  puppy 
of  a  few  months  old.  Regular  meals  and  ripen- 
ing years  had  developed  him  into  a  sort  of  general 
epitome  of  all  the  dogs  that  ever  existed.  He  pos- 
sessed points  which,  exhibited  individually, 
would  have  gained  many  marks  at  Cruft's  Dog 
Show.  His  tail  would  have  increased  the  market 
value  of  a  Chow  fourfold ;  his  shoulders  and  fore- 
legs would  have  done  credit  to  a  prize  bull  terrier; 
his  ears  would  have  inflated  the  self-esteem  of  the 


56    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

silkiest  spaniel  in  existence;  and  his  lower  jaw 
would  have  been  regarded  as  an  asset  by  an  alli- 
gator. His  manners  were  without  reproach,  but 
were  derived  rather  from  mental  vacuity  than 
nobility  of  character;  for  with  the  deportment  of 
an  hidalgo  he  combined  the  intelligence  of  a 
chorus-lady. 

His  name,  as  already  mentioned,  was  Mr. 
Dawks,  but  he  responded  with  equal  amiability 
to  "Angel  Child"  or  "  Beautiful  one"  (Daphne) ; 
"Flea-Club"  (Ally);  "Puss,  puss!"  (Nicky); 
and  "Tank-Engine"  (Stiffy),  to  whose  mechan- 
ical mind  bandy  legs  and  laboured  breathing 
suggested  a  short  wheel  base  and  leaky  outside 
cylinders. 

Mr.  Dawks,  having  arisen  from  his  nightly 
resting-place  outside  Daphne  Vereker's  bedroom 
door,  strolled  downstairs  to  the  study.  The  Rec- 
tor was  frequently  to  be  found  there  early  in  the 
morning,  and  were  he  not  too  deeply  absorbed  in 
some  dusty  volume,  there  might  be  biscuits.  But 
the  room  was  empty.  Mr.  Dawks  laboriously  re- 
mounted the  staircase  and  scratched  delicately 
at  his  mistress's  door. 

He  was  admitted,  and  found  Daphne,  in  dress- 
ing-gown and  slippers,  preparing  for  her  Sunday 
morning  round,  in  which  she  doubled  the  parts  of 
what  is  known  in  the  North  of  England  as  a 
"knocker-up"  and  mistress  of  the  wardrobe;  for 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    57 

the  week's  clean  garments  were  always  distrib- 
uted on  these  occasions.  The  pair  set  forth  to- 
gether. 

After  a  tap  at  her  father's  door,  answered  by  a 
melodious  "Good-morning,  daughter!"  Daphne 
proceeded  to  the  regions  above.  Here  upon  the 
landing  she  encountered  her  youngest  sister,  who 
ought  properly  to  have  been  dressing  in  the  bed- 
room which  she  shared  with  Cilly,  but  was  now 
sitting  resignedly  outside  the  door  upon  a  bundle 
composed  of  her  Sabbath  garments.  As  she  was 
obviously  posing  for  the  excitation  of  sympathy, 
Daphne  ignored  her  and  passed  into  the  bedroom, 
where  the  window  blind  was  flapping  in  the 
breeze  and  Cilly  lay  in  a  condition  of  almost  total 
eclipse  (if  we  except  a  long  tawny  pigtail)  under 
the  bedclothes. 

"Cilly,"  enquired  Daphne,  "what's  Nicky 
doing  outside?" 

"I  kicked  her  out,"  replied  a  muffled  voice. 

"Why?" 

"Well"  —  Cilly  poked  her  head,  tortoise- 
fashion,  from  under  its  covering  —  "she  cheeked 
me  —  about"  —  the  head  retired  again  — 
"something." 

"Bobby  Gill,  I  suppose,"  remarked  Daphne 
calmly. 

Cilly's  countenance  reappeared,  rosily  flushed 
with  healthy  sleep  and  maiden  modesty. 


58    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"Yes." 

"Well,  you  must  take  her  in  again,"  said 
Daphne.  "She's  only  playing  up  for  a  cold,  sit- 
ting out  there,  and  it  will  be  a  score  for  her  if  she 
can  sniff  the  house  down  to-morrow." 

"All  right,"  said  Cilly  resignedly.  "I  suppose 
I  can  pay  her  out  some  other  way." 

"I  would  n't,  if  I  were  you,"  advised  the  elder 
sister.  "She'll  only  wait  till  she  gets  you  and 
Bobby  together,  and  then  say  something  awful. 
It 's  your  own  fault,  dear.  You  do  ask  for  it,  you 
know." 

Cilly,  whose  flirtations  were  more  numerous 
than  discreet,  sighed  deeply,  and  rolled  a  pair  of 
large  and  dreamy  eyes  upon  her  sister. 

"Daph,  don't  you  ever  fall  in  love  with  men? 
Well  —  boys,  if  you  like!"  she  continued,  parry- 
ing an  unspoken  comment.  "  I  know  I  do  overdo 
it  a  bit;  but  you  —  well,  you  never  do  it  at  all. 
Don't  you  love  to  feel  them  edging  up  to  you, 
and  getting  pink  in  the  face,  and  trying  to  think  of 
things  to  say  to  you,  and  offering  to  take  you — " 

"No,"  said  Daphne  decidedly;  "they  bore 
me.  Barring  Dad  and  Mr.  Dawks  and  the  boys, 
I  have  no  use  for  males.  Besides,  I  'm  always  too 
busy  to  bother  with  them.  They  waste  so  much 
of  your  time.  Now,  my  child,  if  you  want  any 
breakfast,  you  had  better  get  up.  I  must  go  and 
see  the  boys." 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    59 

She  departed,  and,  with  a  passing  admonition 
to  Nicky  to  abandon  her  eleemosynary  vigil  and 
be  sure  to  wash  her  neck,  continued  on  her  way, 
still  accompanied  by  the  faithful  Dawks,  to  the 
chamber  occupied  by  her  two  youngest  brothers. 

Here  peace  reigned.  Stiffy,  one  of  whose  chief 
joys  in  life  was  the  study  of  the  British  Railway 
System,  from  Automatic  Couplings  to  Newspaper 
Specials,  was  sitting  up  in  bed  with  an  old  Brad- 
shaw,  laboriously  ascertaining  by  how  many 
routes  and  with  how  few  changes  the  ordinary 
railway  maniac  might  travel  from  Merthyr  Tyd- 
vil  to  Stockton-on-Tees.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
room  the  ever  occupied  Anthony,  with  his  night- 
shirt for  a  surplice  and  a  stocking  for  a  stole,  was 
standing  by  an  open  grave  (the  hearthrug)  re- 
hearsing the  Service  for  the  Burial  of  the  Dead  — 
an  exercise  to  which,  in  common  with  various 
other  ecclesiastical  offices,  he  was  much  addicted. 

Daphne,  having  kissed  Stiffy  and  gravely  given 
her  verdict  upon  a  knotty  point  which  was  exer- 
cising that  scrupulous  youth's  mind,  namely, 
whether  it  was  permissible  by  the  rules  of  the 
game  to  include  in  his  schedule  of  connections  a 
train  which  ran  on  Thursdays  only,  handed  him 
his  weekly  dole  of  clean  linen,  and  turned  to  the 
youngest  member  of  the  family. 

"Good-morning,  Tony  dear,"  she  said  cheer- 
fully. 


60    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

The  celebrant,  who,  true  artist  that  he  was, 
disliked  unnecessary  abruptness  in  his  transi- 
tions, stopped  short  in  the  Ninetieth  Psalm. 

"Dearly  beloved  brethren,"  he  gabbled  in  an 
apologetic  undertone,  "I  am  called  for  a  moment 
from  the  side  of  this  the  last  resting-place  of  our 
beloved  sister  "  —  apparently  he  was  interring  a 
lady  friend  —  "by  other  business;  but  I  shall  be 
back  in  a  minute." — Then,  unwinding  the  stock- 
ing from  about  his  neck:  "Daphne,  those  new 
vests  are  beastly  scratchy.  Must  I  wear  them?" 

"I  know,  old  man,"  responded  his  sister  sym- 
pathetically. "But  they've  been  bought  and 
paid  for,  —  horribly  dear,  too,  —  so  you  must 
lump  it.  Try  wearing  them  inside  out  for  a  time. 
That  takes  the  edge  off  a  bit." 

And  thus,  with  sage  counsel  and  practical  sug- 
gestion (together  with  a  brief  whistle  to  Mr. 
Dawks,  who  was  moistening  his  internal  clay  at 
the  water- jug),  out  young  Minerva  passed  on  to 
the  sleeping-place  of  her  beloved  Ally. 

Rather  to  her  surprise,  Mr.  Aloysius  Vereker 
was  awake  and  out  of  bed.  The  reason  was  plain. 
Before  him  upon  the  dressing-table  lay  a  pot  of 
shaving-soap  of  a  widely  advertised  brand,  a  new 
shaving-brush,  a  sixpenny  bottle  of  bay  rum,  and 
a  lather  dish  of  red  india-rubber  —  youthful 
extravagances  to  which  the  hardened  shaver  of 
twenty  years'  standing,  who  smears  himself  with 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    61 

ordinary  Brown  Windsor  out  of  the  soap-dish  and 
wipes  his  razor  on  a  piece  of  newspaper  or  the 
window-curtain,  looks  back  with  mingled  amuse- 
ment and  regret.  In  his  hand  gleamed  a  new 
razor. 

"Careful!"  he  gasped  through  a  sea  of  lather. 
"  Don't  shake  the  room,  kid ! " 

Daphne  sat  cautiously  down  upon  the  bed,  and 
surveyed  the  operator  with  unfeigned  pride  and 
enthusiasm.  She  clasped  her  hands. 

"Ally,  how  splendid!  When  did  you  begin 
doing  it?" 

Ally,  weathering  a  hairless  and  slippery  corner, 
replied :  — 

"Third  time.  I'm  doing  it  chiefly  to  make 
something  grow.  A  man  simply  has  to  shave  after 
he  gets  into  the  Fifteen :  you  look  such  a  fool  on 
Saturday  nights  if  you  don't.  A  chap  in  our  house 
called  Mallock,  who  has  had  his  colours  four  years, 
has  a  beard  about  half  an  inch  long  by  Friday. 
He's  a  gorgeous  sight." 

Daphne  shuddered  slightly. 

Ally  continued. 

"I  don't  expect  to  rival  him,  of  course,  but  I 
should  like  to  have  something  to  scrape  off  in  the 
dormitory.  My  fag  always  grins  so  when  he  brings 
me  my  shaving-water  —  little  tick!" 

Daphne  was  too  well  versed  in  the  eccentrici- 
ties of  the  young  of  the  male  species  to  experience 


62    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

the  slightest  feeling  of  surprise  at  her  brother's 
singular  ambition.  She  merely  wrapped  a  blan- 
ket round  her  shoulders  and  settled  herself  against 
the  head  of  the  bed,  anxiously  contemplating  the 
progress  of  a  sanguinary  campaign  in  the  region 
surrounding  Ally's  jugular  vein. 

Presently  operations  came  to  a  conclusion;  the 
traces  of  battle  were  obliterated  with  much  spong- 
ing and  spraying;  and  the  pair  sat  and  gossiped 
amicably  while  Ally  stropped  his  razor  and  put 
studs  in  his  Sunday  shirt. 

It  was  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour  before  Daphne 
returned  to  her  room,  for  her  Sunday  morning 
call  upon  Ally  was  always  a  protracted  affair. 
But  before  she  left  she  had,  after  the  usual  bland- 
ishments, exacted  from  him  a  promise  that  he 
would  come  to  church.  Their  father  never  exer- 
cised compulsion  in  this  matter;  but  if  any  mem- 
ber of  the  family  did  stay  at  home  on  Sunday 
morning,  the  Rector's  mute  distress  was  such  as 
to  blight  the  spirits  of  the  household  for  the  rest 
of  the  day;  and  Daphne  always  exerted  herself 
to  the  full  to  round  up  her  entire  flock  in  the  Rec- 
tory pew  at  the  appointed  hour.  The  most  recal- 
citrant members  thereof  were  Ally  and  Nicky, 
but  the  former  could  usually  be  cajoled  and  the 
latter  coerced. 

After  breakfast  the  Rector  retired  to  his  study 
to  continue  his  sermon,  and  not  long  afterwards 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    63 

was  to  be  seen,  key  in  hand,  passing  through  the 
wicket  gate  which  led  from  the  garden  into  the 
churchyard.  Having  tolled  the  church  bell  for 
five  minutes  he  busied  himself  at  the  altar,  and 
then  turned  up  the  Lessons  at  the  lectern,  mark- 
ing these  same  in  plain  figures;  for  the  Squire, 
who  fulfilled  the  office  of  reader,  required  careful 
guidance  in  this  respect.  (He  had  been  known 
to  read  the  same  Lesson  twice;  also  the  Second 
Lesson  before  the  First;  and  once  he  had  turned 
over  two  pages  together  towards  the  end  of  a 
long  chapter,  and  embarked  with  growing  huski- 
ness  and  visible  indignation  upon  a  supplement- 
ary voyage  of  forty-seven  verses.) 

Presently  the  Rector  returned  to  the  house  for 
his  surplice,  and  ten  minutes  later,  a  tall  and 
saintly  figure,  followed  his  hob-nailed  and  bullet- 
headed  choristers  into  the  chancel. 

Snayling  Church,  though  a  diminutive  building, 
was  one  of  the  oldest  of  its  kind  in  England.  The 
tower  was  square  and  stumpy,  and  had  served  as 
a  haven  of  refuge  more  than  once.  A  later  gener- 
ation, following  the  pious  but  unnecessary  fashion 
of  the  day,  had  erected  upon  its  summit  a  steeple 
of  homely  design,  which  indicated  the  route  to 
heaven  in  an  officious  and  altogether  gratuitous 
manner.  Inside  the  building  itself  the  roof  was 
supported  by  massive  stone  pillars  and  Norman 
arches.  Beneath  the  floor  lay  folk  long  dead,  their 


64    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

names,  virtues,  and  destination  set  forth  in  many 
curious  inscriptions  in  stone  and  brass  upon  the 
flat  tombstones,  the  latter  the  prey  of  the  tourist 
with  his  tracing-paper  and  heel-ball.  The  chancel 
contained  a  real  Crusader,  who  reclined,  sword  in 
hand  and  feet  crossed,  upon  a  massive  sarcopha- 
gus, his  good  lady  by  his  side.  Tony  Vereker  had 
woven  many  a  legend  about  him,  you  may  be 
sure. 

Each  of  the  tiny  transepts  contained  two 
square  pews,  decently  veiled  from  the  public  gaze 
by  red  curtains.  Those  on  the  north  side  belonged 
respectively  to  the  Squire,  whose  arrival  in  church 
with  his  wife  and  four  daughters  always  served 
as  an  intimation  to  the  organist  —  Mr.  Pack,  the 
schoolmaster  —  that  it  was  eleven  o'clock  and 
time  to  wind  up  the  voluntary;  and  old  Lady 
Curlew,  of  Hainings,  who  invariably  arrived  five 
minutes  before  the  hour,  accompanied  by  her 
maid,  who,  having  packed  her  mistress  into  a 
corner  of  the  pew  with  cushions  and  hassocks, 
returned  discreetly  to  the  free  seats  by  the 
door. 

Of  the  pews  in  the  south  transept  one  was  the 
property  of  the  Lord  of  the  Manor,  the  Marquis  of 
Kirkley.  It  was  seldom  occupied,  for  his  lordship 
suffered  from  the  misfortune  (which  modern 
legislation  is  doing  so  much  to  alleviate)  of  pos- 
sessing more  residences  than  he  could  comfortably 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    65 

live  in.  His  adjacent  seat,  Kirkley  Abbey,  was 
seldom  open  except  for  a  few  weeks  during  the 
pheasant  season ;  and  even  the  recurrence  of  that 
momentous  period  did  not  postulate  undue  con- 
gestion in  the  family  pew. 

The  other  pew  was  the  Rector's,  and  here 
Daphne  succeeded  on  this  particular  Sabbath 
morning  in  corralling  the  full  strength  of  her 
troupe. 

Non  sine  pulvere,  however.  Ally,  as  already  re- 
lated, had  proved  fairly  tractable,  but  Nicky 
(who  just  at  present  stood  badly  in  need  of  the 
services  of  a  competent  exorcist)  had  almost 
evaded  ecclesiastical  conscription  by  a  new  and 
ingenious  device.  At  ten-fifteen  precisely  she  had 
fallen  heavily  down  a  flight  of  two  steps  and 
sprained  her  ankle.  Unsympathetic  Daphne,  ex- 
perienced in  the  detection  of  every  form  of  ma- 
lingering, had  despatched  her  upstairs  with  a 
bottle  of  Mr.  Elliman's  strongest  embrocation  — 
the  property  of  Ally  —  with  instructions  to  anoint 
the  injured  member  and  report  herself  for  duty 
at  ten-forty-five  prompt.  At  the  appointed  hour 
Nicky,  limping  painfully  and  smiling  heroically, 
had  joined  the  rest  of  the  family  in  the  hall. 

Presently  Ally  remarked  casually:  — 

"Rotten  stink  here.  Furniture  polish,  or  some- 
thing." 

"Yes  —  filthy  reek!"  agreed  Stiffy. 


66    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"  It 's  turpentine,"  cried  Cilly ,  crinkling  her  nose. 

"It's  Elliman,"  said  Tony. 

"It's  you,  Nicky!"  said  everybody  at  once. 

Daphne,  who  was  drawing  on  her  gloves,  peeled 
them  off  again  with  some  deliberation,  and  took 
her  youngest  sister  by  the  shoulders. 

"Nicky,"  she  enquired,  "how  much  Elliman 
did  you  put  on  your  ankle?" 

That  infant  martyr,  wincing  ostentatiously, 
delicately  protruded  a  foot,  and  exhibited  a  long 
black  leg  heavily  swathed  from  knee  to  instep 
under  her  stocking  with  a  bandage  of  colossal 
dimensions. 

"Not  more  than  I  could  help,  Daph,"  she  said. 
"  I  found  one  or  two  other  bruises  on  my  —  all 
over  me,  in  fact — so  I  —  I  just  put  a  little  Elli- 
man on  each.  I  did  n't  want  to  be  a  trouble  to 
any  one,  so  —  " 

"Run  upstairs,  Stiffy,"  Daphne  interpolated 
swiftly,  "and  see  how  much  Elliman  is  left  in  the 
bottle." 

By  this  time  Cilly  had  thrown  open  the  front 
door  and  staircase  windows,  and  the  remainder 
of  the  Vereker  family  were  fanning  themselves 
with  their  Sunday  hats  and  ostentatiously  fight- 
ing for  breath  —  an  exercise  in  which  they  perse- 
vered until  Stiffy  reappeared  carrying  an  empty 
bottle. 

"Two  bobs'  worth!"  shouted  Ally.    "And  I 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    67 

meant  it  to  last  for  months!  Nicky,  you  little 
sweep!" 

Daphne  glanced  at  the  hall  clock. 

"Fourteen  minutes!"  she  calculated  frantic- 
ally. "Yes,  it  can  just  be  done.  Nicky,  my 
cherub,  you  shall  come  to  church  this  morning  if 
I  have  to  scrape  you.  Go  on,  you  others !  I  '11  fol- 
low myself  as  quickly  as  I  can." 

The  last  sentence  was  delivered  far  up  the  stair- 
case, which  Miss  Vereker  was  ascending  with 
flying  feet,  a  tearful  and  unwilling  appendage 
trailing  behind  her.  Next  moment  the  bathroom 
door  banged,  and  the  departing  worshippers 
heard  both  taps  turned  on. 

At  two  minutes  past  eleven  precisely,  Daphne 
and  Nicky,  the  former  cool,  collected,  and  as 
prettily  dressed  as  any  woman  in  the  congrega- 
tion, the  latter  scarlet  as  if  from  recent  parboil- 
ing, walked  demurely  down  the  aisle,  just  as  the 
choir  entered  the  chancel  lustily  bellowing  a 
hymn  which  drew  attention  to  the  advantages 
accruing  in  the  next  world  to  that  Servant  of  the 
Lord  who  should  be  found  Waiting  in  his  office, 
in  a  Posture  not  specified,  —  Tony  used  often  to 
wonder  what  would  happen  if  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment should  fall  upon  a  Bank  Holiday  or  Satur- 
day afternoon,  —  and  joined  the  rest  of  the  family 
in  the  Rectory  pew. 


68    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

A  sermon,  we  all  know,  offers  unique  facilities 
for  quiet  reflection.  As  their  father's  silvery  voice 
rose  and  fell  in  the  cadences  of  his  discourse  —  he 
had  soared  far  above  the  heads  of  his  bucolic  au- 
dience, and  was  now  disporting  himself  in  a  de- 
lectable but  quite  inaccessible  aether  of  his  own, 
the  worshippers  (such  of  them  as  had  not  yielded 
to  slothful  repose),  following  his  evolutions  with 
mystified  and  respectful  awe,  much  as  a  crowd  of 
citizens  in  a  busy  street  gape  upwards  at  the  gam- 
bols of  an  aeroplane  —  the  Rectory  children 
wedged  themselves  into  their  own  particular 
nooks  of  the  pew  and  prepared  to  get  through  the 
next  twenty  minutes  in  characteristic  fashion. 

Ally  closed  his  eyes  and  assumed  an  attitude  of 
slumber,  as  befitted  his  years  and  dignity.  But  he 
was  not  asleep.  He  did  not  look  comfortable.  Per- 
haps his  breakfast  had  disagreed  with  him,  or 
possibly  he  was  contemplating  within  himself  the 
vision  of  a  receding  University  and  an  all-too-ad- 
jacent office  stool.  Daphne,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on 
the  wall  opposite  and  her  brow  puckered,  was 
pondering  some  domestic  problem  —  her  own 
extravagantly  small  feet,  mayhap,  or  Wednes- 
day's hypothetical  leg  of  mutton.  Despite  her 
burden  of  care,  her  face  looked  absurdly  round 
and  childish  under  her  big  beaver  hat.  One  hand 
supported  her  chin  in  a  characteristic  pose,  the 
other  controlled  the  movements  of  the  restless 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    69 

Anthony,  who  was  impersonating  something  of  a 
vibratory  nature.  Cilly,  with  glowing  eyes  and 
parted  lips,  was  reading  the  Marriage  Service  in 
her  prayer-book.  Nicky,  whose  recent  ablutions 
had  apparently  purged  her  of  outward  sin  only, 
had  pulled  forward  two  long  wisps  of  black  hair 
from  behind  her  ears,  and  by  crossing  these  under 
her  nose  had  provided  herself  with  a  very  realistic 
and  terrifying  pair  of  moustaches,  by  portentous 
twistings  of  which,  assisted  by  the  rolling  of  a 
frenzied  eye,  she  was  endeavouring  to  make  poor 
Stiffy  laugh.  That  right-minded  youth,  though 
hard-pressed,  had  so  far  withstood  temptation 
by  resolutely  reciting  to  himself  a  favourite  ex- 
cerpt from  Bradshaw's  Railway  Guide,  beginning 
"Brighton  (Central),  Preston  Park,  Burgess  Hill, 
Hassocks,"  and  ending  with  "Grosvenor  Road, 
Victoria"  —  a  sedative  exercise  to  which  he  was 
much  addicted  at  moments  of  bodily  anguish  or 
mental  stress;  but  it  was  plain  that  his  defence 
was  weakening.  Fortunately  the  approaching 
explosion,  which  would  have  been  of  a  cataclys- 
mal  nature,  —  Stiffy  was  not  a  boy  to  do  things 
by  halves, — was  averted  by  a  change  of  demean- 
our on  the  part  of  the  temptress.  Her  quick  ear 
had  caught  some  unaccustomed  sound  behind 
her.  Letting  go  of  her  moustache,  which  imme- 
diately assumed  a  more  usual  position,  she 
squirmed  round  in  her  seat  and  gently  parted  the 


70    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

red  rep  curtains  which  separated  the  Rectory 
pew  from  that  of  Kirkley  Abbey.  An  excited 
gurgle  apprised  her  fellow  worshippers  of  the  fact 
that  some  unusual  sight  had  met  her  eyes. 

What  Nicky  saw  was  this. 

Immediately  opposite  to  her  improvised  peep- 
hole sat  a  man  —  a  large  man  with  square  shoul- 
ders and  an  immobile  face.  He  was  clean-shaven, 
with  two  strong  lines  running  from  his  nostrils  to 
the  corners  of  his  mouth  —  a  mouth  which  even 
in  repose  looked  determined  and  grim.  He  pos- 
sessed a  square  jaw  and  rather  craggy  brows.  It 
was  difficult  to  decide  if  he  were  sleeping  or  no, 
for  though  his  eyes  were  closed  there  was  none  of 
the  abandon  of  slumber  about  his  pose.  His  most 
noticeable  feature  was  the  set  of  his  eyebrows, 
which,  instead  of  being  arched  or  level,  ran  up- 
wards and  outwards  in  a  diagonal  direction,  and 
gave  him  a  distinctly  satanic  appearance  —  a 
circumstance  which  Nicky  noted  with  sympa- 
thetic approval.  He  was  dressed  in  the  somewhat 
degage  Sabbath  attire  affected  by  Englishmen 
spending  the  week-end  in  the  country,  and  his 
feet  were  perched  upon  the  seat  opposite  to  him. 

Presently,  for  some  cause  unknown  —  possi- 
bly Nicky's  hard  breathing  —  he  opened  his 
eyes. 

Immediately  in  front  of  him  the  stranger  be- 
held a  small  excited  face,  a  pair  of  saucer-like  blue 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    71 

eyes,  and  a  wide  but  attractive  mouth  —  the 
whole  vision  framed  in  dusty  red  rep.  The  face 
was  flushed,  the  eyes  glowed,  and  the  mouth  was 
wide  open. 

The  picture,  suddenly  surprised  in  its  inspection 
by  a  pair  of  the  shrewdest  and  most  penetrating 
eyes  it  had  ever  beheld,  dropped  hurriedly  out  of 
its  frame  and  disappeared.  If  Nicky  had  waited 
a  moment  longer  she  would  have  received  a  less 
one-sided  impression  of  the  stranger,  for  almost 
simultaneously  with  the  discovery  of  the  appari- 
tion in  the  peep-hole  the  man  smiled.  Instantly 
his  whole  face  changed.  The  outer  corners  of  his 
eyebrows  descended,  the  crease  between  them 
disappeared,  and  magnificent  teeth  gleamed  for 
a  moment  in  the  dim  religious  light  of  the  pew. 

Nicky  leaned  across  to  her  eldest  sister,  and 
whispered  huskily. 

"There's  somebody  in  the  other  pew.  I  think 
it's  the  Devil.  Look  yourself!" 

But  Daphne,  deep  in  domestic  mental  arith- 
metic, smiled  and  shook  her  head;  and  Nicky  re- 
ceived little  more  encouragement  from  the  rest  of 
the  family.  The  profession  of  scaremonger  and 
exploiter  of  mare's  nests,  though  enjoyable  on  the 
whole,  has  its  drawbacks;  if  you  get  hold  of  a 
genuine  scare  or  an  authentic  mare's  nest,  nobody 
believes  you. 

The  sermon  began  to  draw  to  a  close,  and  a  few 


72    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

minutes  later  the  Rector  descended  from  the 
clouds  and  gave  out  the  final  hymn,  prefacing  his 
announcement  by  an  intimation  that  the  offertory 
that  day  would  be  devoted  to  the  needs  of  the 
Children's  Cottage  Hospital  in  the  neighbouring 
County  Town.  His  appeal  was  characteristic. 

"Money,"  he  mused,  "is  the  most  hampering 
and  perplexing  thing  in  this  life.  It  is  so  artificial 
and  unnecessary.  I  often  sigh  for  a  world  where 
all  commerce  would  be  in  kind  —  where  a  cheque 
on  the  Bank  of  Gratitude  would  settle  the  weekly 
bills,  and  *I  thank  you!'  be  regarded  as  legal  ten- 
der up  to  any  amount.  But  there  is  no  give  and 
take  in  these  days.  Everything,  from  Life  and 
Love  down  to  the  raiment  we  wear,  is  duly  ap- 
praised and  ticketed,  and  if  we  stand  in  need  of 
these  things  we  must  render  a  material  tale  of 
pounds  and  pence  or  go  without.  No  wonder  men 
call  this  the  Iron  Age!  But,  though  money  as  a 
rule  brings  nothing  in  its  train  but  disappoint- 
ment and  regret  (and  therefore  it  is  better  to  have 
too  little  than  too  much),  there  are  times  and  sea- 
sons when  it  is  permitted  to  us  to  purchase  happi- 
ness with  it.  To-day  gives  us  one  of  these  oppor- 
tunities. Do  not  let  that  opportunity  slip.  Post  est 
occasio  calva."  (Respectful  intake  of  breath  on 
the  part  of  the  congregation.)  "  I  do  not  urge  you 
to  give  on  the  plea  put  forward  in  a  hymn  that 
you  will  find  in  your  books,  —  a  hymn  written  by 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    73 

a  man  who  should  have  known  better,  —  a  hymn 
which  shall  never,  so  long  as  I  am  Rector  of  this 
parish,  emerge  from  the  obscurity  of  the  printed 
page,  —  advocating  generosity  in  almsgiving  on 
the  ground  that  contributions  to  the  offertory  on 
earth  will  be  refunded  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred 
thousand  per  cent  in  heaven.  I  do  not  ask  you  to 
give  either  much  or  little.  Very  few  of  us  here  are 
overburdened  with  this  world's  goods.  Still,  we 
can  each  afford  to  buy  some  happiness  to-day,  at 
a  very  low  rate.  And  it  will  not  be  transitory  or 
temporary  happiness  either;  for  every  time  here- 
after that  your  daily  task  or  a  country  walk  takes 
you  past  the  Children's  Hospital  at  Tilney,  that 
happiness  will  blossom  again  with  ever-reviving 
fragrance  in  your  hearts.  Let  us  sing  hymn  num- 
ber three  hundred  and  sixty-nine. 

Thine  arm,  O  Lord,  in  days  of  old 
Was  strong  to  heal  and  save.  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  general  upheaval  of  the  congrega- 
tion and  a  clatter  of  rustic  boots ;  the  little  organ 
gave  a  premonitory  rumble,  and  the  hymn  began. 

The  hymn  after  the  sermon  is  not  as  a  rule  an 
impressive  canticle.  Imprimis,  it  is  of  abnormal 
length  and  little  coherence,  having  apparently 
been  composed  for  the  sole  purpose  of  lasting  out 
the  collection  of  the  offertory;  item,  the  congre- 
gation is  furtively  engaged  in  retrieving  umbrellas 
from  under  seats  and  gliding  into  overcoats. 


74    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

Hence  it  was  always  a  pleasant  diversion  to  the 
Rectory  children  to  follow  the  movements  of  the 
two  churchwardens  as  they  ran  their  godly  race 
up  the  aisle  in  the  pursuit  of  alms  and  oblations. 
They  even  risked  small  sums  on  the  result.  When 
the  Squire  and  Mr.  Murgatroyd  (Stationer  and 
Dealer  in  Fancy  Goods)  stepped  majestically 
from  their  respective  pews  and  set  to  work  on  this 
particular  morning,  Daphne  produced  five  six- 
pences and  handed  them  to  her  brothers  and  sis- 
ters. Nicky,  in  her  anxiety  to  see  what  sum  the 
stranger  in  the  Kirkley  Abbey  pew  would  con- 
tribute to  the  total,  received  her  own  contribu- 
tion with  such  nonchalance  that  the  coin  slipped 
from  her  hand  and  was  being  hunted  for  among 
hassocks  upon  the  floor  when  Mr.  Murgatroyd 
reached  the  stranger's  pew. 

Nicky  found  her  sixpence  and  resumed  an  up- 
right attitude  just  in  time  to  hear  (in  a  pause  be- 
tween two  verses)  a  faint  papery  rustle  on  the 
other  side  of  the  curtain. 

A  moment  later  Mr.  Murgatroyd  opened  the 
door  of  the  Rectory  pew,  with  his  usual  friendly 
air  of  dropping  in  for  a  cup  of  tea,  and  presented 
the  bag.  The  children  put  in  their  sixpences  one 
by  one.  Nicky's  turn  came  last.  She  peered  into 
the  bag,  and  her  sharp  eyes  caught  sight  of  some- 
thing white  protruding  from  amid  the  silver  and 
copper. 


THE  DEVIL  A  MONK  WOULD  BE    75 

Taking  the  bag  from  Mr.  Murgatroyd's  hands 
—  she  controlled  that  indulgent  bachelor  as  she 
willed :  he  counted  it  a  pleasure  to  turn  his  stock 
inside  out  on  Saturday  afternoons  whenever  Miss 
Veronica  came  in  with  a  penny  to  spend  —  and 
deliberately  drew  out  a  piece  of  folded  crinkly 
white  paper.  This,  laying  the  offertory  bag  upon 
the  baize-covered  table  in  the  middle  of  the  pew, 
she  carefully  unfolded,  and  perused  the  staring 
black  legend  inscribed  upon  the  flimsy  white 
background.  When  she  raised  her  eyes  they  were 
those  of  an  owlet  suffering  from  mental  shock. 

"  Golly ! "  she  observed  in  bell-like  tones.  "  The 
Devil  has  put  in  a  ten-pound  note!" 


CHAPTER  V 

A  SABBATH   DAY'S   JOURNEY 

THE  Rectory  children,  washed  and  combed  for 
Sunday  dinner,  sat  at  ease  in  the  old  nursery  — 
promoted  to  schoolroom  since  Tony  went  into 
knickerbockers  —  and  discussed  the  munificent 
stranger  of  the  morning. 

Their  interest  in  his  movements  and  identity 
had  been  heightened  by  the  fact  that  after  service 
was  over  he  had  proceeded  to  the  right  instead  of 
the  left  on  leaving  the  Kirkley  Abbey  pew,  and, 
turning  his  broad  back  upon  an  undisguisedly  in- 
terested congregation,  had  stalked  up  the  chancel 
and  disappeared  through  the  door  leading  to  the 
vestry. 

"I  wonder  what  he  went  for,"  said  Cilly  for  the 
third  time. 

"  Perhaps  he  was  going  to  give  Dad  more  bank- 
notes," suggested  the  optimistic  Stiffy. 

"More  likely  going  to  ask  for  change  out  of  the 
first  one,"  rejoined  Ally. 

"I  expect  he  was  going  to  complain  about  you 
making  faces  at  him  through  the  curtains,  Nicky," 
coldly  observed  Cilly,  who  had  not  yet  forgiven 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY      77 

her  small  sister's  innuendoes  on  the  subject  of  Mr. 
Robert  Gill. 

"Rats ! "  demurred  Nicky  uneasily.  "  I  did  n't 
make  faces.  I  expect  he's  only  some  tourist  who 
wants  to  rub  brasses,  or  sniff  a  vault,  or  some- 
thing." 

"He  must  be  a  friend  of  Lord  Kirkley's,"  said 
Ally,  "because — " 

"/ '//  show  you  who  he  is,"  shrilled  a  voice  from 
the  depth  of  a  cupboard  under  the  window. 

Tony,  who  had  been  grubbing  among  a  heap  of 
tattered  and  dusty  literature  in  the  bottom  shelf, 
now  rose  to  his  feet  and  staggered  across  the  room 
carrying  an  ancient  but  valuable  copy  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress,  embellished  with  steel  engrav- 
ings. 

Having  deposited  the  volume  upon  the  hearth- 
rug he  proceeded  to  hunt  through  its  pages. 
Presently,  with  a  squeal  of  delight,  he  placed  a 
stumpy  forefinger  upon  a  full-page  illustration, 
and  announced  triumphantly :  — 

"That 'shim!" 

The  picture  represented  Christian's  battle  with 
Apollyon.  Christian,  hard-pressed,  had  been 
beaten  to  his  knees,  and  over  him  towered  the 
figure  of  his  satanic  opponent,  brandishing  a 
sword  and  (in  the  most  unsportsmanlike  manner) 
emitting  metallic-looking  flames  from  his  stom- 
ach. The  children  gathered  round. 


78    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"You  are  right,  Tony,"  said  Cilly  at  length; 
"it  is  like  him." 

Certainly  Apollyon  bore  a  sort  of  far-away  re- 
semblance to  the  late  occupant  of  the  Kirkley 
Abbey  pew. 

"Look  at  his  eyebrows,"  said  Nicky,  "they  go 
straight  up  —  " 

The  churchyard  gate  clicked,  and  voices  were 
heard  in  conversation  outside.  Daphne  sped  to 
the  window. 

"Heavens!"  she  exclaimed  in  an  agonised  whis- 
per, "Dad  is  bringing  him  in  to  lunch!  Ally,  take 
your  boots  off  the  mantelpiece!  Nicky,  pull  up 
your  stockings !  Cilly,  knock  Dawks  off  the  sofa ! 
I  must  fly.  I  wonder  if  there's  enough  cream  to 
make  a  trifle.  Anyhow,  the  beef  —  " 

And  she  sped  away  kitchenwards,  like  an  agi- 
tated butterfly. 

A  few  minutes  later  the  Rector  appeared  in  the 
schoolroom,  smiling  joyously,  with  his  hand  rest- 
ing lightly  on  the  shoulder  of  the  recently  identi- 
fied Apollyon.  Tony  was  restoring  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  to  its  shelf  with  the  complacency  of  a 
second  Bertillon. 

"These  are  my  flock,  Jack,"  said  Brian  Vere- 
ker.  "I  wonder  if  any  of  you  can  guess  who  this 
gentleman  is.  Would  you  think  that  he  and  I 
were  at  school  together?  Tony,  I  have  often  told 
you  of  little  Jack  Carr,  who  used  to  light  my  fire 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY      79 

and  cook  my  breakfast.  And  a  shocking  mess  he 
used  to  make  of  it  —  eh?  Did  n't  you,  Jack?  Do 
you  remember  the  day  you  fried  sausages  in  mar- 
malade, because  the  label  on  the  pot  said  marma- 
lade would  be  found  an  excellent  substitute  for 
butter?  Well,  here  he  is,  Tony.  We  have  run  to- 
gether again  after  twenty-five  years.  Come  and 
shake  hands.  These  are  my  two  younger  girls, 
Jack,  and  these  are  my  two  other  boys.  Where  is 
Daphne,  children?" 

The  Vereker  family,  drawn  up  in  a  self-con- 
scious row,  were  understood  to  intimate  that 
Daphne  was  downstairs.  A  move  was  therefore 
made  in  the  direction  of  the  dining-room,  where 
Keziah,  the  little  maid,  was  heatedly  laying  an 
extra  place.  Daphne  joined  the  party  a  moment 
later,  and  welcomed  Sir  John  Carr  —  such  was 
his  full  title,  it  appeared  —  with  prettiness  and 
composure.  Cilly  and  Nicky  noted  that  their  sis- 
ter had  found  time  to  rearrange  her  hair  in  honour 
of  the  occasion,  and  adorn  herself  with  most  of 
her  slender  stock  of  jewellery  —  two  bangles  and 
a  thin  gold  chain. 

Sunday  dinner  was  something  of  a  function  at 
the  Rectory.  For  one  thing  there  was  hot  roast 
beef,  which  counts  for  much  when  you  see  the  like 
only  once  in  the  week.  The  Rector  carved  and 
Stiffy  handed  round  the  plates,  Keziah,  whose 
Sunday  afternoon-out  commenced  technically 


80    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

the  moment  the  sirloin  was  dished,  being  excused 
from  further  attendance.  Daphne  presided  over 
the  vegetable  dishes  and  Ally  cut  bread  at  the 
sideboard.  The  office  of  butler  was  in  abeyance, 
for  the  Vereker  family  drank  only  water  from 
their  highly  polished  christening-mugs.  Nicky 
was  responsible  for  the  table  napkins,  and  Cilly 
mixed  salads  in  season.  All  these  domestic  de- 
tails Daphne  explained,  with  captivating  friend- 
liness and  a  freedom  from  self -consciousness  that 
many  a  more  matured  hostess  might  have  en- 
vied, to  the  silent  man  beside  her. 

"Sorry  to  have  all  the  family  pouring  things 
over  you,"  she  said,  as  Stiffy  with  a  plate  of  beef, 
Ally  with  a  lump  of  bread  impaled  upon  a  fork, 
and  Cilly  with  a  bowl  of  lettuce,  egg,  and  beet- 
root cunningly  intermingled,  converged  simul- 
taneously upon  the  guest;  "  but  we  have  only  one 
servant,  and  —  " 

Stephen  Blasius  Vereker,  poised  upon  his  toes 
and  holding  his  breath,  was  leaning  heavily  over 
the  guest's  right  shoulder,  proffering  a  platter 
upon  the  edge  of  which  a  billow  of  gravy,  piling 
itself  up  into  a  tidal  wave,  strove  to  overcome  the 
restraining  influence  of  surface  tension.  Apollyon, 
his  features  unrelaxed,  gravely  took  the  plate, 
and,  restoring  it  to  a  horizontal  position,  turned 
deferentially  to  resume  his  conversation  with  his 
young  hostess. 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY      81 

" —  And  I  like  poor  Keziah  to  have  as  long  a 
Sunday  out  as  possible,"  continued  Daphne,  en- 
tirely unruffled. 

"  Her  young  man  waits  for  her  at  the  stile  down 
by  Preston's  farm,"  supplemented  Nicky.  "They 
go  for  a  walk  down  Tinkler's  Den,  and  never 
speak  a  word  to  each  other." 

"So  we  wait  on  ourselves  at  this  meal,"  con- 
cluded Daphne.  "What  will  you  drink,  Sir 
John?  Father  is  a  teetotaller,  and  so  are  all  of  us; 
but  if  you  are  not,  I ' ve  got  some  brandy  upstairs 
in  the  nursery  medicine  cupboard." 

"  Thank  you,  I  will  drink  water,"  said  Sir 
John  gravely. 

By  this  time  the  Vereker  family  had  settled 
down  to  their  own  portions,  and  were  babbling  as 
cheerfully  and  unrestrainedly  as  usual.  Shyness 
in  the  presence  of  strangers  was  not  one  of  their 
weaknesses,  and  presently,  taking  advantage  of 
Daphne's  departure  to  the  kitchen  in  quest  of 
the  second  course,  they  engaged  their  guest  in 
conversation,  inviting  his  opinions  on  such  widely 
different  subjects  as  the  quality  of  the  salad 
(Cilly),  the  merits  of  the  Automatic  Vacuum 
railway  brake  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
Westinghouse  (Stiffy),  and  the  prospects  of  Cam- 
bridge in  the  coming  Boat  Race  (Ally).  All  of 
which  queries  were  answered  in  a  fashion  which, 
while  lacking  in  geniality  and  erring  a  little  on  the 


82    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

side  of  terseness,  showed  that  the  respondent 
knew  what  he  was  talking  about. 

The  Rector,  at  the  head  of  the  table,  smiled 
benignantly.  To  him  this  reticent  man  of  over 
forty,  with  the  deep-set  eyes  and  square  jaw,  was 
the  sturdy  chubby  boy  who  had  cooked  his  break- 
fast and  worshipped  him  from  afar  in  the  dim  but 
joyous  days  when  Brian  Vereker  was  a  giant  of 
nineteen,  with  side  whiskers,  and  Jacky  Carr  a 
humble  fag  of  twelve.  It  was  almost  a  shock  to 
hear  him  offered  spirits  to  drink. 

Presently  Daphne  returned,  and  another  gen- 
eral post  ensued,  at  the  end  of  which  the  beef  and 
vegetables  had  disappeared,  and  a  suet  pudding 
(the  standing  Sabbath  sweet  at  the  Rectory), 
flanked  by  a  dish  of  trifle  of  diminutive  propor- 
tions, lay  before  the  hostess.  The  Rector  was 
confronted  by  a  melon. 

Taking  advantage  of  a  covering  conversation 
between  the  guest  and  her  eldest  brother,  Miss 
Vereker  made  a  mysterious  pass  over  the  surface 
of  the  trifle  with  a  spoon,  while  she  murmured  to 
such  of  the  family  as  were  within  earshot  the 
mystic  formula:  "F.  H.  B!" 

Then  she  enquired  aloud :  — 

"Cilly  dear,  which  pudding  will  you  have?" 

"Baby  Maud,  please,"  replied  Miss  Cecilia 
promptly,  indicating  the  stiff,  pallid,  and  corpse- 
like  cylinder  of  suet. 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY      83 

She  was  helped,  and  Nicky's  choice  was  ascer- 
tained. 

"I  don't  think"  that  damsel  replied  sedately, 
"that  I'll  have  anything,  thank  you,  Daphne. 
I'm  not  very  hungry  to-day." 

Daphne,  with  a  slight  twitch  at  the  corners  of 
her  mouth,  —  she  appreciated  Nicky's  crooked 
little  ways,  despite  herself,  —  turned  to  the  guest. 

"Will  you  have  pudding  or  trifle,  Sir  John? 
Let  me  recommend  the  trifle." 

"Thank  you,  I  never  eat  sweets,"  was  the 
reply. 

An  audible  sigh  of  relief  rose  from  the  Messrs. 
Vereker. 

"Daph,  dear,"  said  Nicky,  before  any  one  else 
could  speak,  "I  think  I'll  change  my  mind  and 
have  some  trifle." 

And  thus,  by  prompt  generalship,  Miss  Veron- 
ica Vereker,  while  obeying  to  the  letter  the  laws 
of  hospitality  and  precedence,  stole  a  march  upon 
her  slow-moving  brethren  and  sisters  and  re- 
ceived the  lion's  share  of  the  trifle,  the  balance 
going  to  Tony  by  virtue  of  juniority. 

As  Daphne  handed  her  triumphant  little  sister 
her  portion,  she  distinctly  heard  a  muffled  sound 
on  her  right. 

"I  like  this  man!"  she  said  to  herself. 

"If  you  don't  take  sweets,  Jack,"  observed  the 
Rector  from  the  other  end  of  the  table,  "allow 


84    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

me  to  introduce  you  to  this  melon  —  a  present 
from  the  Squire.  Take  the  melon  round  to  Sir 
John,  Stiffy,  and  he  shall  cut  in  where  he  pleases; 
though,  strictly  speaking,"  he  added,  with  simple 
enjoyment  of  his  own  joke,  "it  is  hardly  etiquette 
to  cut  anything  you  have  been  introduced  to!" 

There  was  a  momentary  stoppage  in  the  gen- 
eral mastication  of  "Baby  Maud,"  and  the  right 
hand  of  each  Vereker  present  performed  the 
same  evolution.  Next  moment  the  repast  was  re- 
sumed, but  the  guest  observed,  not  without  sur- 
prise, that  every  christening-mug  —  even  Daph- 
ne's —  had  a  knife  lying  across  its  top. 

"That  is  one  of  our  customs,"  explained  Cilly 
politely.  "We  do  it  whenever  any  one  makes  a 
stale  joke." 

"Alice  through  the  Looking -Glass"  corrobo- 
rated Nicky,  scooping  up  trifle  with  an  air  of  se- 
vere reproof  —  "page  two  hundred  and  seven." 

"You  see  my  servile  and  dependent  position  in 
this  house,  Jack! "  said  the  Rector,  not  altogether 
dejectedly. 

"I  perceive  that  I  have  dropped  into  a  Repub- 
lic," said  Sir  John  Carr. 

"Republic?  A  more  absolute  despotism  never 
existed.  Wait  until  you  have  transgressed  one  of 
the  Laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  and  been 
brought  up  for  judgment  before  my  eldest  daugh- 
ter! We  know,  don't  we  —  eh,  Nicky?" 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY     85 

Brian  Vereker  projected  the  furtive  smile  of  a 
fellow  conspirator  upon  his  youngest  daughter, 
and  then  turned  to  gaze  with  unconcealed  fond- 
ness and  pride  upon  his  eldest. 

"I  trust  that  when  I  transgress,"  said  Sir  John, 
"I  shall  get  off  under  the  First  Offender's  Act." 

"You  have  broken  that  already,"  said  Daphne 
swiftly;  "but  it's  Dad's  fault.  It  is  twenty  min- 
utes to  three,  and  you  two  ought  to  have  been 
smoking  in  the  study  ten  minutes  ago  instead  of 
talking  here.  I  want  to  get  this  room  cleared  for 
the  children  to  learn  their  Catechism  in." 

At  half -past  three  Brian  Vereker  summoned  his 
eldest  daughter  to  the  study,  and  announced  with 
frank  delight  that  Sir  John  Carr  had  agreed  to 
vacate  the  Kirkley  Arms  and  accept  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  Rectory. 

"I  am  going  to  walk  down  to  the  inn  now," 
said  Apollyon  to  Daphne,  "to  see  about  my  lug- 
gage. Perhaps  you  will  keep  me  company?" 

"All  right,"  said  Daphne,  "I'll  bring  Mr. 
Dawks  too.  He  wants  a  walk,  I  know." 

Sir  John  made  no  comment,  but  gave  no  active 
support  to  the  inclusion  of  Mr.  Dawks  in  the 
party.  It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  when 
Daphne  had  at  length  achieved  that  feat  which 
encroaches  so  heavily  upon  a  woman's  share  of 
eternity  —  the  putting-on  of  her  hat  —  and 


86    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

joined  her  guest  in  the  garden  accompanied  by 
Mr.  Dawks  in  person,  Apollyon  greeted  the  owner 
of  the  name  with  far  more  cordiality  than  he  had 
greeted  the  name  itself.  It  is  sometimes  mis- 
leading to  bestow  Christian  titles  upon  dumb 
animals. 

Once  away  from  the  rest  of  the  family,  Daph- 
ne's maternal  solemnity  fell  from  her  like  a  school- 
master's cap  and  gown  in  holiday  time.  She  chat- 
tered like  a  magpie,  pointing  out  such  objects  of 
local  interest  as :  — 

(1)  Farmer  Preston's  prize  bull; 

(2)  The  residence  of  a  reputed  witch; 

(3)  A  spinney,  where  a  dog-fox  had  once  gone 
to  ground  at  one  end  of  an  earth,  and  a  laughing 
hyena  (subsequently  ascertained  to  be  the  lost 
property  of    that    peripatetic   nobleman    Lord 
George  Sanger)  had  emerged  from  the  other,  to 
the  entire  and  instantaneous  disintegration  of  a 
non-abstaining  local  Hunt. 

"I  say,  where  do  you  live?"  she  enquired  sud- 
denly, breaking  off  in  the  middle  of  a  detailed  his- 
tory of  Kirkley  Abbey,  whose  fagade  could  be 
descried  through  the  trees  on  their  right.  "Lon- 
don?" 

"Yes." 

"All  the  year  round?" 

"No.  I  spend  a  good  deal  of  my  time  in  the 
North." 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY     87 

"Oh!  What  do  you  do  there?  What  are  you, 
by  the  way?" 

Daphne  looked  up  at  her  companion  with  bird- 
like  inquisitiveness.  She  moved  in  a  society  fa- 
miliar with  the  age,  ancestry,  profession,  ward- 
robe, ailments,  love-affairs,  and  income  of  every 
one  within  a  radius  of  five  miles.  Consequently 
she  considered  a  new  acquaintanceship  incom- 
plete in  the  last  degree  until  she  had  acquired 
sufficient  information  on  the  subject  in  hand  to 
supply,  say,  a  tolerably  intimate  obituary  notice. 

"I  suppose  you  are  something"  she  continued. 
"I  hope  so,  anyhow.  An  idle  man  is  always  so 
mopy." 

"What  would  you  put  me  down  as?"  asked 
Apollyon. 

Daphne  scrutinised  him  without  fear  or  em- 
barrassment. 

"I'm  not  much  of  a  judge,"  she  said.  "You 
see,  we  don't  come  across  many  men  here,  and  we 
are  so  poor  that  we  don't  get  away  much." 

"Don't  you  go  up  to  London  occasionally,  to 
buy  a  new  dress?  "  said  Sir  John,  covertly  regard- 
ing the  trim  figure  by  his  side. 

"Me  —  London?  Not  much.  Dad  has  a  lot  of 
grand  relations  there,  but  I  don't  think  he  both- 
ered much  about  them,  or  they  about  him,  after 
he  married.  He  was  too  much  wrapped  up  in 
mother.  So  we  never  hear  anything  of  them  now. 


88    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

No,  I  have  hardly  ever  been  away  from  Snayling, 
and  I  'm  a  great  deal  too  busy  here  to  worry  about 
London  or  any  other  such  place.  So  I  don't  know 
about  men,"  she  concluded  simply  —  "except 
my  own,  of  course." 

"Your  own?" 

"Yes  —  Dad  and  the  boys.  Of  course  I  know 
all  about  the  sort  of  man  one  meets  round  here. 
I  can  tell  a  ditcher  from  a  ploughman;  and  if  I 
meet  a  man  in  a  dogcart  with  cases  at  the  back  I 
know  he 's  a  commercial  traveller,  and  if  he  has  a 
red  face  I  know  he's  a  farmer,  and  if  he  has  n't  I 
know  he 's  a  doctor;  but  I  have  n't  had  much  other 
experience." 

"  Still,  what  am  I  ?  "  reiterated  Apollyon. 

"Well  —  I  suppose  you  are  not  a  soldier,  or 
you  would  have  a  moustache." 

"No." 

"You  might  be  a  lawyer,  being  clean-shaven. 
Are  you?" 

"No." 

"Oh!  That 's  rather  disappointing.  You  would 
make  a  ripping  judge,  with  a  big  wig  on.  Well, 
perhaps  you  write  things.  I  know  —  you  are  an 
author,  or  an  editor!" 

"No." 

"Foiled  again ! "  said  Daphne  cheerfully.  "Let 
me  see,  what  other  professions  are  there?  Are 
you  a  Don,  by  any  chance?  A  Fellow,  or  lecturer, 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY     89 

or  anything?  We  had  a  Fellow  of  All  Souls  down 
here  once.  He  was  a  dear." 

"No." 

"You  are  a  'Varsity  man,  I  suppose." 

"Yes." 

"Oxford  or  Cambridge?" 

"Cambridge." 

"I  am  glad.  Dark  blue  is  so  dull,  is  n't  it? 
Besides,  Dad  is  a  Cambridge  man.  He  is  an  old 
Running  Blue.  He  won  —  but  of  course  you 
know  all  about  that.  It  seems  queer  to  think  you 
knew  him  before  I  did !  —  Well,  I  give  you  up. 
What  do  you  do?" 

Apollyon  reflected. 

"I  sell  coals,"  he  replied  at  last,  rather  unex- 
pectedly. 

This  announcement,  and  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  made,  momentarily  deprived  Miss  Vereker 
of  speech  —  a  somewhat  rare  occurrence. 

"I  see,"  she  said  presently.  "We  get  ours 
from  the  station-master,"  she  added. 

"I  was  not  proposing  to  apply  for  your  cus- 
tom," said  Apollyon  meekly. 

At  this  point  they  reached  the  Kirkley  Arms, 
and  in  the  effort  involved  in  rousing  that  somno- 
lent hostelry  from  its  Sabbath  coma  and  making 
arrangements  for  the  sending-up  of  Sir  John  Carr's 
luggage  to  the  Rectory,  the  question  of  why  he 
sold  coals,  and  whether  he  hawked  the  same 


90    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

round  in  a  barrow  or  delivered  his  wares  through 
the  medium  of  the  Parcels  Post,  was  lost  sight  of. 

On  the  homeward  walk  conversation  was  main- 
tained on  much  the  same  terms.  Daphne  held 
forth  unwearyingly ,  and  Apollyon  contented  him- 
self for  the  most  part  with  answering  her  point- 
blank  questions  and  putting  a  few  —  a  very  few 
—  of  his  own.  Certainly  the  man  was  a  born  lis- 
tener, and  amazingly  magnetic.  Tacitus  himself 
could  not  have  said  less,  and  the  greatest  cross- 
examiner  in  the  legal  profession  could  not  have 
extracted  more.  As  they  strolled  side  by  side 
through  the  Kirkley  woods,  where  the  last  of  the 
daffodils  were  reluctantly  making  way  for  the 
first  of  the  primroses,  Daphne  found  herself  re- 
citing, as  to  a  discreet  and  dependable  father- 
confessor,  a  confidential  but  whole-hearted  sum- 
mary of  the  present  state  of  domestic  politics. 

Ally's  failure  to  secure  a  scholarship  at  the 
University  was  mentioned  and  commented  on. 

"It  was  disgusting  of  him  to  miss  the  Greek 
Prose  paper,'5  Daphne  thought.  "  He  did  n't  over- 
sleep at  all,  of  course,  I  soon  found  that  out.  The 
real  reason  was  that  he  had  gone  to  some  man's 
rooms  the  night  before,  and  the  silly  brat  must  go 
and  drink  a  whiskey-and-soda  and  smoke  a 
cigar.  That  did  it !  It  was  no  use  telling  Dad,  be- 
cause he  simply  would  n't  believe  such  a  story; 
and  if  he  did,  it  would  make  him  unhappy  for 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY      91 

weeks.  Besides,  who  can  blame  the  poor  dear? 
You  can 't  be  surprised  if  a  schoolboy  kicks  over 
the  traces  a  bit  the  first  time  he  finds  himself  out 
on  his  own  —  can  you?" 

"I  thought,"  replied  Sir  John,  finding  that 
some  answer  was  expected  of  him,  "  that  you  said 
you  knew  nothing  of  men." 

"I  said  I  did  n't  know  many  men,"  corrected 
Daphne.  "But  those  I  do  know  I  know  pretty 
thoroughly.  They're  very  easy  to  understand, 
dear  things!  You  always  know  where  you  are 
with  them.  Now,  girls  are  different.  Did  you  no- 
tice that  boy  whom  we  passed  just  now,  who 
went  pink  and  took  off  his  hat?  That's  Bobby 
Gill — a  flame  of  Cilly's.  I'm  going  to  have  a  lot 
of  trouble  with  Cilly's  love-affairs,  I  can  see. 
She  falls  down  and  worships  every  second  man 
she  meets.  I  believe  she  would  start  mooning 
round  the  place  after  you  if  you  were  n't  so 
old,"  she  added.  "Cilly's  a  darling,  but  what 
she  wants — " 

She  plunged,  with  puckered  brow  and  tireless 
tongue,  into  a  further  tale  of  hopes  and  fears. 
Stiffy's  schooling,  Nicky's  boots,  the  curate  who 
had  to  come  —  all  were  laid  upon  the  table.  Even 
the  Emergency  Bag  and  Wednesday's  joint 
crept  in  somehow. 

They  were  almost  home  when  she  concluded. 

Suddenly  Apolly on  enquired :  — 


92    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"Do  you  know  the  name  of  that  little  hollow 
on  our  right?  Is  it  Tinkler's  Den?" 

"Yes,  we  often  have  picnics  there.  How  did 
you  know?  " 

"It  is  part  of  Lord  Kirkley's  estate,  as  you  are 
probably  aware;  and  his  lordship,  finding  like 
most  of  us  that  he  has  not  sufficient  money  for 
his  needs,  has  asked  me  to  come  and  have  a  look 
at  the  ground  round  Tinkler's  Den  on  the  off- 
chance  of  our  finding  coal  there." 

Daphne  turned  upon  him,  wide-eyed  and  hor- 
ror-struck. 

"You  mean  to  say,"  she  gasped,  "that  you  are 
going  to  dig  for  coals  in  Tinkler's  Den?" 

"I  can't  tell  you  until  —  " 

Apollyon  paused.  A  small  hand  was  resting  on 
his  sleeve,  and  a  very  small  voice  said  beseech- 
ingly,— 

"Don't  —  please!" 

"Very  well,  then:  I  won't,"  he  said  in  a 
matter-of-fact  fashion;  and  they  resumed  their 
walk. 

"I  hope  you  have  n't  been  bored,"  said  Daphne, 
the  hostess  in  her  rising  to  the  surface  as  the 
shadows  of  the  Rectory  fell  upon  her  once  more. 
"Your  ears  must  be  simply  aching,  but  it's  such 
a  treat  to  talk  to  any  one  who  knows  about 
things.  I  never  get  a  chance  to  ask  advice.  I 


A  SABBATH  DAY'S  JOURNEY      93 

usually  have  to  give  it.  Dad  and  the  boys  are  so 
helpless,  poor  dears!" 

They  were  passing  through  the  wicket  gate. 
Daphne  suddenly  paused,  and  looked  up  at  her 
guest  with  more  mischief  in  her  eyes  than  her 
brothers  and  sisters  would  have  given  her  credit 
for. 

"It's  queer,"  she  mused,  "that  you  should  sell 
coals.  We  thought  you  shovelled  them!  " 

"Explain,  please!"  said  Sir  John. 

Daphne  did  so.  "We  had  to  call  you  some- 
thing," she  concluded  apologetically.  "Do  you 
mind?" 

"Not  at  all.  I  have  been  called  a  good  many 
names  in  my  time,"  said  Sir  John  grimly. 

"What  do  your  friends  call  you?"  asked 
Daphne  —  "your  intimate  friends." 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  have  any." 

Daphne  surveyed  him  shrewdly,  with  her  head 
a  little  on  one  side. 

"No  —  I  should  think  you  were  that  sort,"  she 
said  gravely.  "Well,  what  do  your  —  do  other 
people  call  you?" 

"Most  of  them,  I  believe,"  said  Sir  John,  "call 
me  *  Juggernaut  Carr. ' ' 


CHAPTER  VI 

DAPHNE  AS   MATCHMAKER 

JUGGERNAUT'S  stay  at  the  Rectory  had  been 
prolonged  for  more  than  three  weeks,  the  busi- 
ness upon  which  he  was  engaged  being  as  easily 
directed,  so  he  said,  from  Brian  Vereker's  study 
as  from  his  own  London  offices.  An  unprejudiced 
observer  might  have  been  forgiven  for  remarking 
that  to  all  appearance  it  could  have  been  directed 
with  equal  facility  from  the  Twopenny  Tube  or 
the  North  Pole;  for  if  we  except  a  prolonged  in- 
terview with  Lord  Kirkley's  land  agent  on  the 
second  day  after  his  arrival,  Juggernaut's  activi- 
ties had  been  limited  to  meditative  contemplation 
of  the  Rector's  spring  flowers  and  some  rather 
silent  country  walks  in  company  with  the  lady  to 
whom  the  Rector  was  wont  to  refer  in  his  play- 
ful moments  as  "my  elderly  ugly  daughter." 

Whether  Daphne's  impulsive  protest  against 
the  desecration  of  her  beloved  Tinkler's  Den 
carried  weight,  or  whether  that  sylvan  spot  was 
found  wanting  in  combustible  properties,  will 
never  be  known;  but  it  may  be  noted  here  that 
Lord  Kirkley  was  advised  that  there  was  no 


DAPHNE  AS  MATCHMAKER       95 

money  in  his  scheme,  and  Snayling  remains  an 
agriculture  centre  to  this  day. 

However,  if  it  be  a  fact  that  no  fresh  experience 
can  be  altogether  valueless,  Juggernaut's  time 
was  certainly  not  wasted.  He  was  absorbed  into 
the  primitive  civilisation  of  Snayling  Rectory. 
He  was  initiated  into  tribal  custom  and  usage, 
and  became  versed  in  tribal  language  consisting 
chiefly  of  abbreviations  and  portmanteau  words. 
He  was  instructed  in  the  principles  which  under- 
lie such  things  as  precedence  in  the  use  of  the 
bath  and  helpings  at  dinner.  He  also  studied  with 
interest  the  fundamental  laws  governing  the  in- 
heritance of  outgrown  garments.  Having  been 
born  without  brothers  and  sisters,  he  found  him- 
self confronted  for  the  first  time  with  some  of 
those  stern  realities  and  unavoidable  hardships 
which  prevail  when  domestic  supply  falls  short 
of  domestic  demand.  The  mystic  phrase  "F.  H. 
B.!"  for  instance,  with  which  Daphne  had  laid 
inviolable  taboo  upon  the  trifle  on  the  day  of  his 
arrival,  he  soon  learned  stood  for  "Family,  Hold 
Back!" 

Again,  if  Master  Stephen  Blasius  Vereker  sug- 
gested to  Miss  Veronica  Elizabeth  Vereker  that  a 
B.  O.  at  the  T.  S.  would  be  an  L.  B.  of  A.  R.;  to 
which  the  lady  replied  gently  but  insistently, 
"Is  it  E.  P.?" — Juggernaut  was  soon  able  to 
understand  that  in  response  to  an  intimation  on 


96    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

the  part  of  her  brother  that  a  Blow  Out  at  the 
Tuck  Shop  would  be  a  Little  Bit  of  All  Right,  the 
cautious  and  mercenary  damsel  was  enquiring 
whether  her  Expenses  would  be  Paid  at  the  forth- 
coming orgy.  If  Stiff y  continued,  "Up  to  2  D.," 
and  Nicky  replied,  "If  you  can't  make  it  a  tan- 
ner, Stiffy  darling,  je  pense  ne!"  the  visitor  gath- 
ered without  much  difficulty  that  in  the  opinion 
of  Miss  Veronica  no  gentleman  worthy  of  the 
name  should  presume  to  undertake  the  enter- 
tainment of  a  lady  under  a  minimum  outlay  of 
sixpence. 

Juggernaut  soon  settled  down  to  the  ways  of 
the  establishment.  He  said  little,  but  it  was  ob- 
vious, even  to  the  boys,  that  he  was  taking  a  good 
deal  in.  He  seldom  asked  questions,  but  he  pos- 
sessed an  uncanny  knack  of  interpreting  for  him- 
self the  most  secret  signs  and  cryptic  expressions  of 
the  community.  This  established  for  him  a  claim 
to  the  family's  respect,  and  in  acknowledgment 
of  the  good  impression  he  had  created  he  was  in- 
formally raised  from  the  status  of  honoured  guest 
to  that  of  familiar  friend.  What  the  Associated 
Body  of  Colliery  Owners  would  have  thought  if 
they  could  have  seen  their  Chairman  meekly 
taking  his  seat  at  the  breakfast-table,  what  time 
the  family,  accompanying  themselves  with  tea- 
spoons against  teacups,  chanted  a  brief  but 
pointed  ditty  consisting  entirely  of  the  phrase 


DAPHNE  AS  MATCHMAKER       97 

"pom-pom!"  repeated  con  amore  and  sforzando 
until  breathlessness  intervened,  —  an  ordeal 
known  at  the  Rectory  as  "  pom-pomming,"  and 
inflicted  daily  upon  the  last  to  appear  at  break- 
fast, —  is  hard  to  say.  Mr.  Montague  for  one 
would  have  enjoyed  it. 

Only  once  did  this  silent  and  saturnine  man 
exhibit  any  flash  of  feeling.  One  morning  before 
breakfast,  Daphne,  busy  in  the  knife-and-boot- 
shed  at  the  back  of  the  house,  heard  a  step  on  the 
gravel  outside,  and  Juggernaut  stood  before  her. 

"Good-morning!"  she  said  cheerfully.  "Ex- 
cuse my  get-up.  I  expect  I  look  rather  a  ticket." 

Juggernaut  surveyed  her.  She  wore  a  large 
green  baize  apron.  Her  skirt  was  short  and  busi- 
nesslike, and  her  sleeves  were  rolled  up  above  the 
elbow.  Her  hair  was  twisted  into  a  knot  at  the 
back  of  her  head.  Plainly  her  toilet  had  only 
reached  the  stage  of  the  petit  lever.  She  was  en- 
gaged in  the  healthful  but  unfashionable  occupa- 
tion of  blacking  boots;  per  contra,  what  Jugger- 
naut chiefly  noted  was  the  whiteness  of  her  arms. 
Finally  his  eye  wandered  to  the  boot  in  which  her 
left  hand  was  engulfed. 

"Whose  boot  is  that?"  he  asked. 

"Yours,  I  should  say.  Dad's  are  square  in  the 
toes." 

Next  moment  a  large  and  sinewy  hand  gripped 
her  by  the  wrist,  and  the  boot  was  taken  from  her. 


98    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

"Understand,"  said  Apollyon,  looking  very 
like  Apollyon  indeed,  "this  must  never  occur 
again.  I  am  angry  with  you." 

He  spoke  quite  quietly,  but  there  was  a  vibrant 
note  in  his  voice  which  Daphne  had  never  heard 
before.  Mr.  Tom  Winch  and  Mr.  Montague  would 
have  recognised  it.  She  looked  up  at  him  fear- 
lessly, rather  interested  than  otherwise  in  this 
new  side  of  his  character. 

"I  can't  quite  grasp  why  you  should  be  angry," 
she  said,  "though  I  can  see  you  are.  Not  being 
millionaires,  we  all  clean  our  own  boots  —  ex- 
cepting Dad,  of  course.  I  always  do  his.  You 
being  a  visitor,  I  threw  yours  in  as  a  make-weight. 
It's  all  in  the  day's  work." 

But  Juggernaut's  fit  had  passed. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  "I  have  no  right 
to  be  angry  with  any  one  but  myself.  I  am 
ashamed.  I  should  have  thought  about  this 
sooner,  but  I  accepted  your  assurance  that  my 
visit  would  throw  no  extra  burden  upon  the  house- 
hold rather  too  readily.  Now,  for  the  rest  of  the 
time  I  am  here,  I  propose,  with  your  permission, 
to  black  my  own  boots.  And  as  a  sort  of  compen- 
sation for  the  trouble  I  have  caused,  I  am  going 
to  black  my  hostess's  as  well. 

"Do  you  know  how  to?"  enquired  the  hostess, 
rather  apprehensively. 

For  answer  Juggernaut  picked  up  a  laced  shoe 
from  off  the  bench  and  set  to  work  upon  it. 


DAPHNE  AS  MATCHMAKER       99 

"I  once  blacked  my  own  boots  every  day  for 
two  years,"  he  said,  breathing  heavily  upon  the 
shoe.  "  Now  if  you  want  to  go  in  and  superintend 
the  preparation  of  breakfast,  you  may  leave  me 
here,  and  I  will  undertake  to  produce  the  requisite 
standard  of  brilliancy."  His  face  lit  up  with  one 
of  his  rare  and  illuminating  smiles,  and  he  set 
grimly  to  work  again. 

Daphne  hesitated  for  a  moment,  and  surveyed 
her  guest  doubtfully.  He  was  burnishing  her  shoe 
in  a  manner  only  to  be  expected  of  an  intensely 
active  man  who  has  been  utterly  idle  for  a  fort- 
night. His  face  was  set  in  the  lines  which  usually 
appeared  when  he  was  driving  business  through  a 
refractory  meeting.  Daphne  turned  and  left  the 
boot-house,  unpinning  her  apron  and  whistling 
softly. 

Juggernaut  finished  off  her  shoes  with  meticu- 
lous care,  and  putting  them  back  upon  the  bench, 
turned  his  attention  to  his  own  boots.  But  his 
energy  was  plainly  flagging.  Several  times  his 
hand  was  stayed,  and  his  eye  wandered  in  the  di- 
rection of  his  hostess's  shoes.  They  were  a  re- 
markably neat  pair.  Daphne  was  proud  of  her 
feet,  —  they  were  her  only  real  vanity,  —  and  she 
spent  more  upon  her  boots  and  shoes  than  the  ex- 
tremely limited  sum  voted  for  the  purpose  by  her 
conscience.  More  than  once  Juggernaut  laid  aside 
his  own  property  and  returned  to  the  highly  un- 


100    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

necessary  task  of  painting  the  lily  —  if  such  a 
phrase  can  be  applied  to  the  efficient  blacking  of  a 
lady's  shoe.  Finally  he  picked  up  his  boots  and 
departed,  to  endure  a  "  pom-pomming "  of  the 
most  whole-hearted  description  on  his  appear- 
ance at  the  breakfast  table. 

But  henceforth  he  appeared  in  the  boot-house 
every  morning  at  seven-thirty,  where,  despite  his 
hostess's  protests,  he  grimly  carried  out  his  ex- 
pressed intention. 

This  was  the  only  occasion,  however,  on  which 
he  asserted  his  will  with  Daphne.  In  all  else  she 
found  him  perfectly  amenable.  He  permitted 
her  without  protest  to  overhaul  his  wardrobe, 
and  endured  meekly  a  scathing  lecture  upon  the 
negligence  apparent  in  the  perforated  condition 
of  some  of  his  garments  and  the  extravagance 
evinced  by  the  multiplicity  of  others.  In  short. 
Daphne  adopted  Juggernaut,  as  only  a  young  and 
heart-whole  girl  can  whose  experience  of  men  so 
far  has  been  purely  domestic.  She  felt  like  his 
mother.  To  her  he  was  a  child  of  the  largest  pos- 
sible growth,  who,  not  having  enjoyed  such  ad- 
vantages as  she  had  all  her  life  bestowed  upon  the 
rest  of  the  flock,  must  needs  be  treated  with  two- 
fold energy  and  special  consideration.  He  was 
her  Benjamin,  she  felt. 

Juggernaut  was  to  depart  to-morrow.    His 


DAPHNE  AS  MATCHMAKER      101 

socks  were  darned.  Items  of  his  wardrobe,  hither- 
to anonymous,  were  neatly  marked  with  his  in- 
itials. His  very  pocket-handkerchiefs  were  num- 
bered. 

"You  are  sending  me  back  to  work  thoroughly 
overhauled  and  refitted,"  he  said  to  Daphne,  as 
she  displayed,  not  without  pride,  his  renovated 
garments  laid  out  upon  the  spare  bed.  "I  feel 
like  a  cruiser  coming  out  of  dry  dock." 

"Well,  don't  get  your  things  in  that  state 
again,"  said  Daphne  severely  —  "  that 's  all !  Who 
looks  after  them?" 

"My  man." 

"  He  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself,  then.  By 
the  way,  there  is  a  dress-waistcoat  of  yours  with 
two  buttons  off.  Can  I  trust  you,  now,  to  get  them 
put  on  again,  or  had  I  better  keep  the  waistcoat 
until  I  can  get  buttons  to  match?" 

"  You  are  very  good,"  said  Juggernaut,  bowing 
before  the  storm. 

"That's  settled,  then.  Where  shall  I  send  it 
to?" 

Juggernaut  thought,  and  finally  gave  the  ad- 
dress of  a  club  in  Pall  Mall. 

"  Club  —  do  you  live  in  a  club  ? "  enquired 
Daphne,  with  a  woman's  instinctive  dislike  for 
such  a  monastic  and  impregnable  type  of  domi- 
cile. 

"Sometimes.   It  saves  trouble,  you  see,"  said 


102    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

Juggernaut  apologetically.  "My  house  in  town 
is  shut  at  present.  I  spend  a  good  deal  of  time  in 
the  North." 

"Where  do  you  live  when  you  are  in  the 
North?"  enquired  Daphne,  with  the  healthy 
curiosity  of  her  age  and  sex. 

"I  have  another  house  there,"  admitted  Jug- 
gernaut reluctantly;  "it  is  called  —  ' 

"How  many  houses  have  you  got  altogether?'* 
asked  Daphne,  in  the  persuasive  tones  of  a  school- 
master urging  a  reticent  culprit  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it  and  get  it  over  like  a  man. 

"I  have  a  little  place  in  the  Highlands,"  said 
Juggernaut,  humbly  — 

Daphne  rolled  her  brown  eyes  up  to  the  ceiling. 

" —  But  it  is  the  merest  shooting-box,"  he 
added,  as  if  pleading  for  a  light  sentence. 

"Is  that  all?" 

"  Yes  —  on  my  honour." 

"And  —  you  live  in  a  clvb  /" 

Then  came  the  verdict  —  the  inevitable  ver- 
dict when  we  consider  the  sex  of  the  judge. 

"What  you  want,"  said  Daphne,  regarding  the 
impassive  features  of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  "is 
a  wife.  It's  not  too  late,  really,"  she  added,  smil- 
ing kindly  upon  him.  "  Of  course  you  think  now 
at  your  age  that  you  could  never  get  used  to  it, 
but  you  could." 

"Do  you  think  any  girl  would  marry  a  man 


DAPHNE  AS  MATCHMAKER     103 

practically  in  his  dotage?"  enquired  Juggernaut 
respectfully. 

"Not  a  girl,  perhaps,"  admitted  Daphne,  "but 
somebody  sensible  and  good.  I  '11  tell  you  what — 
don't  you  know  any  nice  widows  ?  A  widow  would 
suit  you  top-hole.  She  would  be  used  to  men  al- 
ready, which  would  help  her  a  lot,  poor  thing! 
Then,  she  would  probably  let  you  down  more 
easily  than  an  old  maid.  She  would  know,  for 
instance,  that  it 's  perfectly  hopeless  to  get  a  man 
to  keep  his  room  tidy,  or  to  stop  leaving  his  slip- 
pers about  on  the  dining-room  hearthrug,  or 
dropping  matches  and  ash  on  the  floor.  Do  marry 
a  widow,  Sir  John!  Don't  you  know  of  any?"  k 

Sir  John  smiled  grimly. 

"I  will  consult  my  visiting-list,"  he  said,  "but 
I  won't  promise  anything.  In  spite  of  the  appar- 
ent docility  of  my  character  there  are  just  one  or 
two  things  which  I  prefer  to  do  in  my  own  way." 

"Still,  I  don't  despair  of  you,"  said  Daphne. 
"Old  Martin  down  in  the  village  married  only  the 
other  day,  and  he  was  seventy-two.  Nearly  bed- 
ridden, in  fact,"  she  added  encouragingly. 

That  evening  after  supper  the  Rectory  children 
sat  round  the  table  engaged  in  card-games  of  a 
heating  and  complicated  nature,  Miss  Vereker  as 
usual  doubling  the  parts  of  croupier  and  referee. 
The  guest  and  the  Rector  were  smoking  in  the 
study. 


104    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

Suddenly  the  door  of  the  dining-room  opened, 
and  Brian  Vereker  appeared. 

"Daphne,  my  daughter,"  he  said,  "can  you 
leave  these  desperadoes  for  a  while  and  join  us  in 
the  study?" 

"  All  right,  Dad.  Ally,  you  had  better  be  dealer. 
Nicky,  if  you  cheat  while  I  am  away,  you  know 
the  penalty!  Come  with  me,  Dawks.  So  long, 
everybody.  Back  directly!" 

But  she  was  wrong.  Game  succeeded  game: 
the  time  slipped  by  unheeded  by  all  except  Nicky 
and  Tony,  who,  because  it  was  past  their  hour  for 
going  to  bed,  noted  its  flight  with  special  and  per- 
sonal relish;  and  it  was  not  until  the  almost  tear- 
ful Cilly  had  been  rendered  an  old  maid  for  the 
fourth  consecutive  time  that  the  family  realised 
that  it  was  nearly  half -past  ten  and  Daphne  had 
not  returned. 

"Of  course,"  said  Nicky,  wagging  her  small 
head  triumphantly,  "we  all  know  what  that 
means!" 

And  for  once  in  her  small,  scheming,  prying 
life,  she  was  right. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   MATCH   IS   STRUCK 

DAPHNE  sat  rather  dizzily  by  her  father's  side, 
holding  his  hand  tightly  and  gazing  straight  be- 
fore her.  A  sudden  turn,  and  lo !  before  her  lay  a 
great  break  in  the  road.  She  had  arrived  at  one  of 
life's  jumping-off  places.  No  wonder  she  gripped 
her  father's  hand. 

Now,  for  a  young  girl  to  consent  to  a  marriage 
with  a  man  considerably  older  than  herself,  a  man 
whom  she  hardly  knows  and  does  not  love,  is 
rightly  regarded  as  a  most  unromantic  proceed- 
ing; and  since  romance  is  the  sugar  of  this  rather 
acrid  existence  of  ours,  we  are  almost  unanimous 
in  discouraging  such  alliances.  And  yet  there  are 
two  sides  to  the  question.  A  loveless  marriage 
may  lead  to  the  ruin  of  two  lives:  on  the  other 
hand,  it  introduces  into  the  proceedings  an  ele- 
ment of  business  and  common  sense  all  too  rare 
in  such  enterprises.  It  is  true  that  the  newly 
united  pair  dream  no  dreams  and  see  no  visions. 
Each  comes  to  the  other  devoid  of  glamour  or 
false  pretences.  But  if  a  couple  find  marriage 
feasible  under  such  circumstances,  the  chances 
are  that  they  are  of  a  type  which  stands  in  no 


106    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

need  of  that  highly  intoxicating  stimulant,  Pas- 
sion. They  are  simply  people  who  realise  at  the 
outset,  instead  of  later  on,  that  life  is  a  campaign 
and  not  a  picnic;  and  each  sees  in  the  other  not  so 
much  an  idol  or  a  plaything  as  a  trusty  ally.  For 
such,  mutual  respect  cannot  but  spring  into  being, 
and  will  in  all  likelihood  grow  into  mutual  love; 
and  mutual  love  which  matures  from  such  begin- 
nings as  these  is  ten  thousand  times  more  to  be 
desired  than  the  frothy  headachy  stuff  which  we 
quaff  in  such  reckless  magnums  in  our  thirsty 
youth. 

On  the  other  hand,  marriages  made  on  earth 
(as  opposed  to  what  are  popularly  regarded  as  the 
celestial  variety)  can  and  often  do  lead  to  ship- 
wreck. Granted.  Still,  marriage  is  a  leap  in  the 
dark  in  any  case,  and  humdrum  philosophers 
must  at  least  be  excused  for  suggesting  that  one 
may  as  well  endeavour  to  illuminate  this  hazard- 
ous feat  of  agility  by  the  help  of  the  Torch  of 
Reason  as  not.  But  of  course  no  one  ever  agrees 
with  such  suggestions.  Romance  and  Sentiment 
cry,  "Never!  Shame!  Monstrous!"  and  most  of 
us  very  humanly,  naturally,  and  rightly  associate 
ourselves  in  the  most  cordial  manner  with  the 
opinions  of  this  old-established  and  orthodox  firm. 

We  left  Daphne  gazing  into  the  study  fire,  with 
a  silent  man  on  either  side  of  her  and  Mr.  Dawks's 
head  upon  her  knee.  She  looked  perfectly  com- 


THE  MATCH  IS  STRUCK        107 

posed,  but  something  was  rocking  and  trembling 
within  her. 

It  is  certainly  disconcerting,  even  for  the  most 
self-possessed  of  maidens,  to  realise,  suddenly 
and  without  warning,  that  there  are  deeper 
things  than  the  domestic  affections.  It  is  still 
more  disconcerting  when  an  individual  whom 
Nature  might  with  perfect  propriety  have  ap- 
pointed your  father,  and  whom  you  with  femi- 
nine perversity  have  adopted  as  a  son,  suddenly 
kicks  over  the  traces  and  suggests  as  a  compro- 
mise that  he  should  occupy  the  intermediate  po- 
sition of  husband. 

Brian  Vereker  sat  smiling,  happy  and  con- 
fident. The  fact  that  Sir  John  Carr  was  forty- 
two  and  Daphne  barely  twenty  had  not  occurred 
to  him.  All  he  realised  was  that  the  little  boy 
who  had  been  his  fag  at  school,  who  had  lit  his 
fire  and  made  his  toast  in  return  for  occasional 
help  with  caesuras  and  quadratic  equations,  had 
grown  up  into  a  man,  and  desired  to  marry  his 
daughter.  The  whole  thing  seemed  so  natural,  so 
appropriate.  He  glowed  with  humble  pride  that 
Providence  should  so  interest  itself  in  his  little 
household.  He  smiled  upon  the  young  people. 

Suddenly  Daphne  turned  to  him,  and  released 
her  hold  on  his  hand. 

"Dad,  will  you  leave  us  for  a  little?"  she  said. 
"I  want  to  talk  to  Sir  John.** 


108    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

The  Rector  rose. 

"By  all  means,"  he  said.  "Now  I  come  to 
think  of  it,  the  presence  of  a  third  party  is  not  es- 
sential to  a  proposal  of  marriage.  I  am  de  tropl  I 
shall  be  upstairs." 

He  laughed  boyishly,  and  left  them. 

When  the  door  closed,  Daphne  turned  to  her 
suitor. 

"So  you  want  me  for  your  wife?"  she  said, 
with  the  air  of  one  opening  a  debate. 

"I  do,"  said  Juggernaut.  It  was  the  first  time 
he  had  spoken  since  she  entered  the  room. 

"And  you  went  and  saw  Dad  about  it!"  went 
on  Daphne  rather  unexpectedly. 

"Yes.  As  I  understood  you  are  not  of  age,  I 
asked  his  permission  to  speak  to  you.  He  rather 
took  the  words  out  of  my  mouth  by  calling  you  in 
and  telling  you  himself." 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that,"  said  Daphne. 
"I  thought  at  first  the  thing  was  being  arranged 
over  my  head,  and  that  I  was  n't  to  be  consulted 
at  all.  But  you  were  going  to  ask  me  properly, 
were  n't  you?  We  prefer  that,  you  know."  She 
spoke  for  her  sex. 

Juggernaut  nodded. 

"Only  Dad  rushed  in  and  spoiled  it  —  eh?" 

;'That  is  correct,"  said  Juggernaut. 

"Well,  begin  now,"  said  Daphne  calmly.  "A 
girl  does  n't  like  to  be  done  out  of  a  proposal.  It 


THE  MATCH  IS  STRUCK         109 

would  be  something  to  tell  the  kids  about  after- 
wards, anyhow." 

Juggernaut  became  conscious  of  a  distinctly 
more  lenient  attitude  towards  the  Rector's  pre- 
cipitancy. 

"Now  that  you  know,"  he  began,  "a  formal 
proposal  would  sound  rather  dull  and  superfluous, 
would  n't  it?" 

"Perhaps  you  are  right,"  said  Daphne  half- 
regretf  ully .  "  Dad  has  spoiled  it  for  me,  after  all ! " 

Presently,  — 

"I  wonder  why  you  want  to  marry  me,"  she 
mused,  fondling  Mr.  Dawks's  ears.  "I  suppose 
you  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  time 
you  had  some  one  to  look  after  all  those  houses 
and  servants  of  yours.  Is  that  it?" 

Juggernaut  regarded  her  curiously. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said. 

"You  are  not  in  love  with  me,  of  course,"  con- 
tinued the  practical  Miss  Vereker,  ticking  off  the 
unassailable  features  of  the  case.  "At  least,  I 
suppose  not  —  I  don't  see  how  you  possibly  could 
be.  It's  rather  hard  for  me  to  tell,  though,  be- 
cause I  don't  quite  know  the  meaning  of  the  word. 
I  love  Dad  and  the  boys  and  Cilly  and  Nicky  and 
Mr.  Dawks  —  don't  I,  Dawks,  dear?  —  and  I 
would  do  anything  to  save  them  pain  or  unhappi- 
ness.  But  I  suppose  that's  not  the  sort  of  love 
that  people  call  love.  It  seems  to  have  been  left 


out  of  my  composition,  or  perhaps  it  has  n  't 
cropped  up  yet.  Now,  Cilly  —  I  am  her  exact 
opposite  —  Cilly  is  always  in  love  with  some  man 
or  other.  By  the  way,  she  told  me  last  night  when 
I  went  to  brush  her  hair  that  she  had  just  fallen 
in  love  with  you,  so  evidently  you  are  n't  too  old, 
after  all!  Would  it  do  as  well  if  you  married 
Cilly?"  Daphne  enquired  tentatively. 

"I'm  afraid  not,"  said  Juggernaut. 

"  Well,  perhaps  you  are  right.  Cilly 's  a  darling, 
but  she  is  very  young  yet,"  agreed  the  time-worn 
Miss  Vereker.  "But"  —  she  broke  off  short  — 
"it  seems  to  me  that  I  am  doing  most  of  the  talk- 
ing. Would  you  care  to  address  the  meeting  — 
say  a  few  words  ?  I  think  I  should  like  to  hear  a  bit 
of  that  proposal,  after  all.  So  far,  all  I  know  is 
that  you  want  to  marry  me.  And  that  I  got  from 
Dad.  Now  —  I  'm  listening ! " 

Daphne  leaned  back  in  her  big  chair  and  smiled 
upon  her  suitor  quite  maternally.  There  was 
something  slightly  pathetic  in  her  childish  free- 
dom from  embarrassment  or  constraint  under 
circumstances  which  usually  test  the  sang  froid 
of  man  and  maid  alike.  Perhaps  Sir  John  was 
struck  by  this,  for  his  eyes  suddenly  softened  and 
the  lines  about  his  mouth  relaxed. 

"  You  need  n't  say  you  love  me,  or  anything 
like  that,  if  you  don't,"  supplemented  Daphne. 
"I  shall  understand." 


THE  MATCH  IS  STRUCK        111 

Sir  John's  eyes  resumed  their  normal  appear- 
ance. 

"As  you  seem  to  prefer  to  keep  matters  on  a 
strictly  business  footing/*  he  said,  "I  will  come 
to  the  point  at  once.  If  you  will  marry  me,  I 
think  I  can  make  you  tolerably  happy  and  com- 
fortable. I  am  a  prosperous  man,  I  suppose,  and 
as  my  wife  you  would  find  a  certain  social  posi- 
tion awaiting  you.  Any  desires  of  yours  in  the 
way  of  houses,  clothes,  jewels,  and  so  on,  you 
could  always  gratify,  within  limits,  at  will.  I 
mention  these  things,  not  because  I  think  they 
will  influence  your  decision,  —  I  should  not  want 
you  for  a  wife  if  I  thought  they  would,  —  but 
because  I  feel  that  every  woman  is  entitled  to  a 
plain  statement  of  fact  about  the  man  who  wishes 
to  marry  her.  Too  often,  under  the  delusion  that 
the  sheer  romance  of  a  love-affair  wipes  all  mun- 
dane considerations  off  the  slate,  she  puts  up 
with  the  wildest  of  fictions.  However,  I  may 
point  out  to  you  that  acceptance  of  my  worldly 
goods  would  enable  you  to  carry  out  certain 
schemes  that  I  know  lie  very  near  your  heart. 
You  could  send  Ally  to  the  University.  You 
could  have  Cilly  finished,  or  whatever  the  ex- 
pression is,  and  bring  her  out  yourself.  And  you 
could  pay  for  a  curate  for  your  father.  You  can 
have  all  the  money  you  want  for  these  enterprises 
by  asking  for  it;  or  if  you  prefer  something  more 


THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

definite  I  would  settle  an  annual  sum  upon  you  — 
say  a  thousand  a  year  —  " 

A  thousand  a  year!  Daphne  closed  her  eyes 
giddily.  Before  her  arose  a  vision  of  a  renovated 
Rectory  —  a  sort  of  dimity  Palace  Beautiful  — 
with  an  enlarged  kitchen-boiler,  new  carpets, 
and  an  extra  servant.  She  saw  her  father  bend- 
ing happily  over  his  sermon  while  a  muscular 
young  Christian  tramped  round  the  parish. 
She  saw  Ally  winning  First  Classes  at  Cam- 
bridge and  Cilly  taking  London  drawing-rooms 
by  storm.  But  Juggernaut  was  still  speaking. 

"On  the  other  hand,  I  ought  to  warn  you  that 
I  am  a  hard  man  —  at  least,  I  believe  that  is  my 
reputation  —  with  somewhat  rigid  notions  on 
the  subject  of  quid  and  quo.  I  would  endeavour  to 
supply  my  wife  with  every  adjunct  to  her  happi- 
ness; but  —  I  should  expect  her  in  return  to  stand 
by  my  side  and  do  her  duty  as  my  wife  so  long  as 
we  both  lived.  They  say  of  me  that  I  never  make 
a  mistake  in  choosing  a  lieutenant.  Well,  the  in- 
stinct which  has  served  me  so  often  in  that  respect 
is  prompting  me  now;  and  it  is  because  I  see  in 
you  a  woman  who  would  stand  by  her  husband 
as  a  matter  of  duty  alone,  quite  apart  from'*  — 
he  hesitated  —  "from  inclination,  that  I  ask  you 
to  marry  me." 

Daphne  gazed  at  him.  Her  heart  was  bumping 
gently.  There  was  something  rather  fine  about 


THE  MATCH  IS  STRUCK         113 

this  proposed  bargain — a  compact  between  a  man 
and  a  woman  to  stand  by  one  another  through 
thick  and  thin,  not  because  they  liked  doing  so, 
but  because  it  was  playing  the  game.  Daphne 
felt  proud,  too,  that  this  master  of  men  should 
have  adjudged  her  —  a  woman  —  to  be  of  the 
true  metal.  But  she  was  honest  to  the  end. 

"You  would  give  all  that  to  have  me  for  your 
wife?  "  she  said. 

Sir  John  bowed  his  head  with  grave  courtesy. 

"I  would,"  he  said  simply. 

"I'm  not  worth  it,"  said  Daphne  earnestly. 
"I  am  only  accustomed  to  looking  after  our  little 
Rectory  and  the  family.  I  might  make  a  fearful 
mess  of  all  your  grand  houses.  Supposing  I  did? 
What  if  I  was  n't  up  to  your  mark?  How  if  your 
friends  did  n't  like  me?  It  would  be  too  late  to 
send  me  back,"  she  pointed  out,  rather  piteously. 

Sir  John's  features  did  not  relax. 

"I  am  willing  to  take  the  risk,"  was  all  he  said. 

There  was  a  long  pause. 

"Let  me  think,"  said  Daphne  suddenly  and 
feverishly. 

She  slipped  out  of  her  chair  on  to  the  hearth- 
rug, and  lay  before  the  twinkling  fire  with  her 
arms  clasped  round  the  neck  of  the  ever-faithful 
Mr.  Dawks,  and  her  face  buried  in  his  rough  coat. 
There  was  a  tense  silence,  accentuated  by  the  ami- 
able thumping  of  Dawks's  tail.  Sir  John  Carr  sat 


114    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

in  his  chair  like  a  graven  image,  looking  down 
upon  the  slim  lithe  figure  at  his  feet.  Daphne  just 
then  was  a  sight  to  quicken  the  blood  in  a  man's 
veins,  but  Juggernaut  never  moved.  Perhaps 
he  realised,  for  all  his  lack  of  lover's  graces  and 
his  harsh  methods  of  wooing,  something  of  the 
solemnity  of  the  moment.  A  child,  without  ex- 
perience, with  nothing  but  her  own  untutored 
instincts  to  guide  her,  was  standing  at  her  cross- 
roads. Would  she  go  forward  with  the  man 
whose  path  through  life  had  so  suddenly  con- 
verged on  hers,  or  fare  on  alone?  And  the  man  — 
what  were  his  feelings?  None  could  have  told  by 
outward  view.  He  simply  waited  —  sitting  very 
still. 

At  last  Daphne  sat  up,  and  shook  back  her  hair 
from  her  eyes. 

"We'll  leave  it  to  Mr.  Dawks,"  she  said. 
"Dawks,  old  boy,  shall  we  do  it?" 

The  house  waited  in  breathless  silence  for  Mr. 
Dawks's  casting  vote.  That  affectionate  and  re- 
sponsive arbitrator,  hearing  himself  addressed, 
raised  his  head,  licked  his  mistress's  hand,  and 
belaboured  the  floor  with  his  tail  in  a  perfect  ec- 
stasy of  cordiality. 

Daphne  turned  to  the  man  in  the  chair. 

"All  right!"  she  said;  "it's  a  bargain.  I'll 
marry  you." 


CHAPTER  VHI 

MORITURA  TE  SALUTAT 

ON  a  bright  spring  afternoon  three  weeks  later, 
the  Rectory  children  sat,  huddled  together  like 
a  cluster  of  disconsolate  starlings,  upon  a  five- 
barred  gate  leading  into  Farmer  Preston's  big 
pasture-meadow. 

It  was  the  eve  of  Daphne's  wedding-day. 

To  those  readers  of  this  narrative  who  feel  in- 
clined to  dilate  upon  the  impropriety  of  marrying 
in  haste,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  bride 
possessed  no  money  and  the  bridegroom  no  rela- 
tives. Consequently  there  would  be  no  presents. 
The  principal  incentives  to  what  Miss  Veronica 
Vereker  pithily  described  as  a  "circus  wedding" 
being  thus  eliminated,  the  pair  were  to  be  mar- 
ried quietly  next  day  in  the  little  church  where 
Daphne  had  been  christened  and  confirmed,  and 
under  the  shadow  of  which  she  had  lived  all  her 
short  life. 

The  bride  had  no  trousseau,  for  her  father  could 
not  afford  one,  and  she  flatly  declined  to  take  a 
penny  from  her  fiance  until  he  became  her  hus- 
band. The  little  village  dressmaker  had  turned 
out  a  wedding-dress  over  which  Cilly  hourly 


116    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

gloated,  divided  between  ecstasy  and  envy;  and 
this,  together  with  an  old  lace  veil  in  which  her 
mother  had  been  married,  would  serve  Daphne's 
needs. 

In  truth,  she  had  little  time  to  think  of  herself. 
She  was  relinquishing  a  throne  which  she  had  oc- 
cupied since  she  was  eleven  years  old,  and  the  in- 
struction and  admonition  of  her  successor  had 
occupied  her  attention  ever  since  the  date  of  her 
wedding  had  been  fixed.  Keys  had  to  be  handed 
over,  recipes  confided,  and  the  mysteries  of  femi- 
nine bookkeeping  unfolded.  There  were  good- 
byes to  be  said  to  bedridden  old  women  and  tear- 
ful cottage  children.  The  bridegroom,  too,  she 
felt,  had  a  certain  claim  upon  her  attention.  He 
had  departed  the  morning  after  Daphne  had  ac- 
cepted him,  and  was  now  very  busy  preparing  his 
house  in  London  for  the  reception  of  the  future 
Lady  Carr.  But  he  had  spent  a  good  deal  of  time 
at  the  Rectory,  for  all  that,  coming  down  for 
week-ends  and  the  like,  and  Daphne,  mindful  of 
the  duties  of  a  fiancee,  devoted  herself  conscien- 
tiously to  his  entertainment  whenever  he  ap- 
peared. 

But  now  the  end  of  all  things  was  imminent. 
To-morrow  the  management  of  the  Rectory 
would  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  dubious  and 
inexperienced  Cilly. 

Meanwhile  the  Rectory  children  continued  to 


MORITURA  TE  SALUTAT       117 

sit  disconsolately  upon  the  gate.  They  were  wait- 
ing for  Daphne,  who  had  promised  to  spend  her 
last  afternoon  with  them.  Sir  John,  who  was 
now  staying  at  Kirkley  Abbey,  —  to  the  mingled 
apprehension  and  exhilaration  of  the  chief  brides- 
maid, Lord  Kirkley  had  offered  to  act  as  best 
man,  —  was  to  come  over  that  afternoon,  but 
only  to  see  the  Rector  on  matters  connected  with 
settlements  and  other  unromantic  adjuncts  to  the 
married  state. 

The  gate  proving  unsuitable  for  prolonged 
session,  the  family  abandoned  their  gregarious 
attitude  and  disposed  of  themselves  in  more  com- 
fortable fashion.  Ally,  home  on  three  days' 
special  leave  from  school,  lay  basking  in  the  sun. 
Cilly  sprawled  on  the  grass  with  her  back  against 
a  tree-trunk,  her  brow  puckered  with  the  gradual 
realisation  of  coming  responsibility.  Stiffy ,  simple 
soul,  with  his  knees  clasped  beneath  his  chin,  sor- 
rowfully contemplated  to-morrow's  bereavement. 
Master  Anthony  Cuthbert,  perched  on  a  log  with 
a  switch  in  his  hand,  was  conducting  an  unseen 
orchestra.  Nicky,  soulless  and  flippant  as  ever, 
speculated  at  large  upon  her  sister's  future. 

"It'll  be  pretty  hot  for  Daph  living  down 
there  at  first,"  she  mused.  A  joke  lasted  Nicky  a 
long  time:  the  humorous  fiction  that  the  bride- 
elect  would  to-morrow  be  carried  off  to  reside 
permanently  in  the  infernal  regions  was  still  as 


118    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

a  savoury  bakemeat  to  her  palate.  "Of  course, 
Polly" — this  was  her  abbreviation  for  Apollyon, 
adopted  as  soon  as  that  gentleman  had  ascended 
from  the  grade  of  familiar  friend  to  that  of  pro- 
spective relative  —  "will  be  glad  to  get  back  to 
his  own  fireside,  but  Daph  will  feel  it  a  bit,  I 
should  think.  Perhaps  he  will  let  her  use  a  big 
fire-screen  to  begin  with!  ...  I  wonder  what 
housekeeping  will  be  like.  I  suppose  the  cook 
will  have  horns  and  a  tail,  and  all  the  food  will  be 
devilled.  I  should  like  to  see  Daph  ordering  din- 
ner. *  Good-morning,  Diabolo!'  'Good-morning, 
Miss!  What  would  you  like  for  dinner  to-night?' 
'Well,  Diabolo,  what  have  you  got?'  'There's  a 
nice  tender  sinner  came  in  this  morning,  Miss. 
You  might  have  a  few  of  his  ribs;  or  would  you 
prefer  him  served  up  grilled,  with  brimstone 
sauce?  And  I  suppose  you  would  like  devils-on- 
horseback  for  a  savoury.'  'That  will  do  very 
nicely,  Diabolo.  Oh,  I  forgot!  It's  possible  that 
the  Lucifers  will  drop  in.  Perhaps  we'd  better 
have  yesterday's  money-lender  cold  on  the  side- 
board in  case  there  is  n't  enough  to  go  round. 
And  we  must  have  something  special  to  —  ' 
Ally,  what  do  people  drink  in  Hell?" 

"Dunno,"  said  Ally  drowsily;,  "molten  lead, 
I  should  think." 

"  Only  the  lower  classes,  dear,"  said  Nicky  with- 
eringly.  "I  am  talking  about  the  best  people." 


MORITURA  TE  SALUTAT       119 

"Sulphuric  acid?"  suggested  Ally,  who  was 
beginning  to  study  chemistry  at  school. 

"That  will  do,"  said  Nicky,  and  returned  to 
her  dialogue.  "'Diabolo,  will  you  tell  the  butler 
to  put  a  barrel  —  no,  a  vat  —  of  sulphuric  acid  on 
ice.  You  know  what  the  Lucifers^are,  when  — ' 
Hallo,  here's  Daph  at  last!" 

The  bride-elect  approached,  swinging  her  gar- 
den hat  in  her  hand,  and  followed  by  Mr.  Dawks. 

"Well,  family,"  she  said,  "I'm  yours  for  the 
rest  of  the  day.  What  shall  we  do?" 

"  Where  is  John  ?  "  enquired  Ally.  (John,  it  may 
be  explained,  was  the  name  by  which  the  family, 
with  the  exception  of  Nicky,  had  decided  to  ad- 
dress their  future  brother-in-law.) 

"In  the  study  with  Dad." 

"Has  he  arranged  about  having  the  five 
o'clock  train  stopped  to-morrow  afternoon?" 
enquired  the  careful  Stiffy. 

"  No.  We  are  going  in  a  motor  all  the  way  to 
London,"  said  Daphne.  "Jack  was  keeping  it  as 
a  surprise  for  me.  It's  a  new  one,  a  —  " 

"All  the  way  to  where  ?  "  enquired  that  econom- 
ical humourist,  Miss  Veronica  Vereker. 

"London." 

"H'm!  Yes,  I  have  heard  .it  called  that,  now 
I  come  to  think  of  it,"  conceded  Nicky,  "but  it 
seems  a  waste  of  a  good  car,  especially  if  it's  a 
new  one.  Unless  it 's  made  of  some  special  — 


120    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

Stiffy, 'what's  the  name  of  that  stuff  that  won't 
burn?" 

"Asbestos?" 

"That's  it  —  asbestos.  I  did  n't  expect  to  see 
you  drive  off  down  the  road,  somehow,"  con- 
tinued Nicky,  in  a  somewhat  injured  voice,  "  just 
like  an  ordinary  couple.  I  thought  Polly  would 
stamp  his  foot  on  the  lawn,  and  a  chasm  would 
yawn  at  your  feet,  and  in  you'd  both  pop,  and 
you  would  be  gone  forever,  like —  Ally,  who 
were  those  two  people  in  the  Latin  book  you  had 
for  a  holiday  task?" 

"Don't  know.  Strikes  me  you're  balmy," 
responded  Mr.  Aloysius  Vereker.  "Unless  you 
mean  Pluto  and  Proserpine." 

"That's  it  —  Proserpine.  Well,  Proserpine, 
what  are  you  going  to  say  to  entertain  your  little 
brothers  and  sisters  this  afternoon?" 

"Anything  you  like,"  said  Proserpine,  endeav- 
ouring to  balance  herself  on  the  top  bar  of  the 
gate.  "How  about  making  toffee  down  in  the 
Den?" 

There  was  a  chorus  of  approval.  Nursery  cus- 
toms die  hard.  Even  the  magnificent  Ally  found 
it  difficult  to  shake  off  the  glamour  of  this  youth- 
ful dissipation. 

"I'll  tell  you  what,"  continued  Daphne,  warm- 
ing up  to  the  occasion,  "we  '11  have  a  regular  fare- 
well feast.  We'll  send  down  to  the  shop  and  get 


MORITURA  TE  SALUTAT       131 

some  buns  and  chocolates  and  ginger-beer,  and  — 
and  —" 

"Bananas,"  suggested  Tony. 

"Nuts,"  added  Cilly. 

"Cigarettes,"  said  Ally. 

"Who  has  got  any  money?"  enquired  Nicky. 

The  family  fumbled  in  its  pockets. 

"Here's  threepence  —  all  I  have,"  said  Cilly 
at  length. 

"Twopence,"  said  Ally,  laying  the  sum  on 
Cilly's  threepenny  bit. 

"Awfully  sorry,"  said  Stiffy,  "but  I'm  afraid 
I've  only  got  a  stamp.  It's  still  quite  gummy  at 
the  back,  though,"  he  added,  hopefully.  "  They  '11 
take  it." 

Tony  produced  a  half-penny. 

"You  can  search  me,  friends!"  was  Nicky's 
despairing  contribution. 

"I  have  fourpence,"  said  the  bride  —  "not  a 
penny  more.  I  handed  over  all  the  spare  house- 
keeping money  to  Dad  this  morning.  That  only 
makes  tenpence-halfpenny,  counting  Stiffy's 
stamp."  She  sighed  wistfully.  "And  I  did  so 
want  to  give  you  all  a  treat  before  I  went!  Well, 
we  must  do  without  the  nuts  and  chocolates, 
and—" 

Nicky  rose  to  her  feet,  swelling  with  sudden  in- 
spiration. 

"Daph,  what's  the  matter  with  running  along 


122    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

to  this  millionaire  young  man  of  yours,  and  touch- 
ing him  for  a  trifle?"  she  enquired  triumphantly. 

Daphne  hesitated.  True,  to-morrow  she  would 
be  a  rich  man's  wife,  able  to  afford  unlimited 
ginger-beer.  But  the  idea  of  asking  a  man  for 
money  did  not  appeal  to  her.  Pride  of  poverty 
and  maidenly  reserve  make  an  obstinate  mixture. 
Yet  the  flushed  and  eager  faces  of  Nicky  and 
Tony,  the  polite  deprecations  of  the  selfless  Stiffy, 
and  the  studied  indifference  of  Cilly  and  Ally 
were  hard  to  resist. 

"I  wonder  if  he  would  mind,"  she  said  doubt- 
fully. 

"Mind?  Oh,  no!  Why  should  he?"  urged  the 
chorus  respectfully. 

"Have  a  dart  for  it,  anyhow,"  said  Nicky. 

Daphne  descended  from  the  gate. 

"Righto!"  she  said.  "After  all,  it's  our  last 
afternoon  together,  and  I  should  like  to  do  you  all 
proud.  I  '11  chance  it.  The  rest  of  you  can  start 
down  to  the  Den  and  collect  sticks,  while  I  run 
along  to  the  house  and  ask  him.  Nicky,  you  had 
better  come  with  me  to  carry  down  saucepans 
and  things.  Come  on  —  I'll  race  you!" 

Three  minutes  later  Sir  John  Carr,  smoking  a 
meditative  cigar  upon  the  lawn,  was  aware  of  a 
sudden  scurry  and  patter  in  the  lane  outside. 
Directly  after  this,  with  a  triumphant  shriek,  the 
nimble  figure  of  his  future  sister-in-law  shot 


MORITURA  TE  SALUTAT       123 

through  the  garden  gate,  closely  followed  by  that 
of  his  future  wife.  Mr.  Dawks,  faint  yet  pursu- 
ing, brought  up  the  rear. 

The  competitors  flung  themselves  down  on  the 
grass  at  his  feet,  panting. 

"We  have  been  having  a  race,"  explained 
Daphne,  rather  gratuitously. 

"I  won!"  gasped  Nicky.  "Daph  has  the  long- 
est legs,"  she  continued,  "but  I  have  the  shortest 
skirts.  Now,  my  children,  I  must  leave  you. 
Wire  in!"  she  concluded,  in  a  hoarse  and  pene- 
trating whisper  to  Daphne. 

Her  short  skirts  flickered  round  the  corner  of 
the  house,  and  she  was  gone.  Daphne  was  left 
facing  herfianc.6. 

"I  say,"  she  began  rather  constrainedly  — 
"don't  get  up;  I'm  not  going  to  stay  —  do  you 
think  you  could  lend  me  a  little  money?  I  —  I  '11 
pay  you  back  in  a  day  or  two,"  she  added  with  a 
disarming  smile.  "The  fact  is,  we  are  going  to 
make  toffee  down  in  the  Den,  and  I  wanted  to  get 
a  few  extra  things,  just  to  give  them  all  a  real 
treat  to  finish  up  with,  you  know.  Will  you  — 
Jack?" 

Juggernaut  looked  up  at  her  with  his  slow 
scrutinising  smile. 

"What  sort  of  extra  things?"  he  enquired. 

"  Oh ! "  —  Daphne  closed  her  eyes  and  began 
to  count  on  her  fingers  —  "buns  and  chocolates 


124    THE  STRIKING  OF  THE  MATCH 

and  nuts  and  ginger-beer.  And  I  wanted  to  give 
Ally  a  packet  of  cigarettes.  (After  all,  he 's  eigh- 
teen, and  he  does  love  them  so,  and  they  are  only 
ten  for  threepence.)  And  if  you  could  run  to  it 
I  should  like  to  get  a  few  bananas  as  well,"  she 
concluded  with  a  rush,  laying  all  her  cards  on 
the  table  at  once. 

Juggernaut  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  looked 
extremely  judicial. 

"What  will  all  this  cost?"  he  enquired. 

"One  and  eleven,"  said  Daphne.  "Jack,'you 
dear!  We  shall  have  a  time!" 

Juggernaut  had  taken  a  handful  of  change  out 
of  his  pocket. 

"One  and  eleven,"  he  said.  "I  wonder,  Daph- 
ne, if  you  will  be  able  to  purchase  an  afternoon  of 
perfect  happiness  for  that  sum  in  a  year's  time." 

He  handed  over  the  money. 

"May  I  have  a  receipt?"  he  asked  gravely. 

Daphne  took  his  meaning,  and  kissed  him 
lightly.  She  lingered  for  a  moment,  anxious  not 
to  appear  in  a  hurry  to  run  away. 

"Is  there  anything  else?"  enquired  Sir  John  at 
length. 

Daphne  ran  an  inward  eye  over  the  possibilities 
of  dissipation. 

"No,  I  don't  think  so,"  she  said.  "Thanks 
ever  so  much!  We  shall  be  back  about  six.  So 
long,  old  man.  Don't  go  to  sleep  in  this  hot  sun." 


MORITURA  TE  SALUTAT       125 

She  flitted  away  across  the  lawn,  jingling  the 
money  in  her  hand.  At  the  gate  she  turned  and 
waved  her  hand.  Juggernaut's  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  her,  but  he  did  not  appear  to  observe  her 
salutation.  Probably  he  was  in  a  brown  study 
about  something. 

Daphne  was  halfway  down  to  the  Den  before  it 
occurred  to  her  that  it  would  have  been  a  graceful 
act  —  not  to  say  the  barest  civility  —  to  invite 
the  donor  of  the  feast  to  come  and  be  present 
thereat.  But  she  did  not  go  back. 

"It  would  bore  him  so,  poor  dear!"  she  said.to 
herself,  —  "and  —  and  us,  too!", 

Next  day  they  were  married.  ] 


BOOK  TWO 
FLICKERINGS 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  HORSE   TO   THE  WATER 

"AND  how  is  her  ladyship?"  enquired  Mrs. 
Carfrae. 

"Her  ladyship/*  replied  Sir  John  Carr,  "is 
enjoying  life.  What  good  bread-and-butter  you 
always  keep." 

They  were  sitting  in  Mrs.  Carfrae's  tiny  draw- 
ing room  in  Hill  Street.  Mrs.  Carfrae  was  a  little 
old  lady  in  a  wheeled  chair.  Her  face  was  com- 
paratively youthful,  but  her  hair  was  snowy 
white.  She  spoke  with  what  English  people,  to 
whom  the  pure  Highland  Scots  of  Inverness  and 
the  guttural  raucousness  of  Glasgow  are  as  one, 
term  "a  Scotch  accent." 

"I  am  glad  you  like  my  bread-and-butter,"  she 
said;  "but  I  fancy  you  get  as  good  at  your  wife's 
tea-table." 

"I  don't  often  see  my  wife's  tea-table,"  con- 
fessed Juggernaut.  "  She  is  out  a  good  deal,  and 
as  a  rule  it  is  more  convenient  for  me  to  have  my 
tea  sent  into  my  study." 

1 *  Where  you  grumble  at  it,  I  '11  be  bound.  I  ken 
husbands.  So  her  ladyship  is  out  a  good  deal? 


130  FLICKERINGS 

Well  do  I  mind  the  first  time  I  caught  her  in,  the 
besom!  That  was  nearly  three  years  ago.  I  am 
not  a  payer  of  calls,  as  you  know;  but  I  felt  that 
I  must  be  the  very  first  to  greet  your  wife,  Johnny, 
boy.  So  the  day  after  I  knew  you  had  settled  in, 
I  had  myself  bundled  into  the  carriage,  and  off  I 
went  to  Grosvenor  Street.  I  told  Maxwell  to  ring 
the  bell  and  enquire  if  her  ladyship  was  at  home. 
The  door  was  thrown  open  immediately — rather 
prematurely,  in  fact.  I  heard  a  sound  like  the 
cheep  of  a  frightened  mouse,  and  I  saw  a  grand 
silk  skirt  and  a  pair  of  ankles  scuttering  up  the 
staircase.  I  knew  fine  what  had  happened.  I  was 
her  first  caller:  and  though  the  child  was  sitting 
in  her  grand  new  drawing-room  waiting  for  me 
and  those  like  me,  her  courage  had  failed  at  the 
sound  of  the  bell,  and  she  was  galloping  up  the 
stair  out  of  the  way  when  the  man  opened  the 
door.  Poor  lassie!  I  did  exactly  the  same  thing 
at  her  age." 

"Did  you  go  in?" 

"I  did.  I  was  determined  to  do  it.  I  gripped 
my  crutch  and  was  out  of  the  carriage  and  up  the 
steps  before  the  footman  could  answer  Maxwell. 
I  hobbled  past  the  man  —  he  just  gaped  at  me 
like  a  puddock  on  a  hot  day  —  and  got  to  the  foot 
of  the  stair  and  looked  up.  As  I  expected,  there 
was  Madam,  hanging  over  the  banisters  to  see 
what  sort  of  a  caller  she  had  hooked  the  first 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       131 

time.  There  was  another  creature  beside  her, 
with  wild  brown  hair  and  eyes  like  saucers.  They 
were  clutching  each  other  round  the  waist.  When 
they  saw  me  they  gave  a  kind  of  horrified  yelp. 
But  I  cried  to  them  to  come  down,  and  in  ten 
minutes  we  were  the  best  of  friends.  They  were 
horribly  prim  at  first;  but  when  they  found  out 
that  I  was  just  a  clavering  old  wife  and  nothing 
more,  they  lost  their  grand  manners.  They  over- 
laid me  with  questions  about  London,  and  while  I 
was  answering  them  the  saucer-eyed  one  set  to 
work  cracking  lumps  of  sugar  with  her  teeth. 
The  other  —  her  ladyship  —  was  eating  jam  out 
of  an  Apostle  spoon.  The  spoon  was  in  her  mouth 
when  a  footman  came  in  to  mend  the  fire.  She  was 
fairly  taken  by  surprise,  and  tried  to  push  the 
whole  concern  into  her  mouth  until  the  man 
should  be  gone.  I  thought  at  first  she  had  swal- 
lowed it,  but  presently  I  saw  the  Apostle  sticking 
out.  And  that  was  three  years  ago.  Well,  I  have 
become  less  active  since  then,  and  I  pay  no  more 
calls,  —  wheel  me  a  piece  nearer  the  fire,  Johnny, 
—  so  I  do  not  see  so  much  of  her  ladyship  as  I  did. 
Still,  I  am  glad  to  hear  she  is  enjoying  life.  And 
how  is  the  baby?" 

"The  baby,"  replied  its  male  parent,  "looks 
and  sounds  extremely  robust.  He  uttered  several 
articulate  words  the  other  day,  I  am  told." 

"Can  he  walk?" 


132  FLICKERINGS 

"He  can  lurch  along  in  a  slightly  dissipated 
manner." 

"  Good !  And  how  does  your  Daphne  handle  all 
these  houses  and  servants  of  yours?" 

Sir  John  smiled. 

"  She  was  a  little  out  of  her  depth  at  first,"  he 
said.  "She  had  not  been  accustomed  to  cater  for 
a  large  household.  The  extravagance  of  ordering 
at  least  one  fresh  joint  a  day  appalled  her,  and  it 
was  a  long  time  before  the  housekeeper  could  cure 
her  of  a  passion  for  shepherd's  pie.  But  she  has  a 
shrewd  head.  She  soon  discovered  which  items 
of  domestic  expenditure  were  reasonable  and 
which  were  not.  She  has  cut  down  the  bills  by 
a  half,  but  I  don't  notice  any  corresponding  fall- 
ing off  in  the  quality  of  the  menu." 

"And  does  she  love  fine  clothes,  and  gaiety?" 

"I  think  she  found  her  maid  rather  a  trial  at 
first.  She  had  been  so  accustomed  not  only  to 
attiring  herself,  but  to  going  round  and  hooking 
up  her  sisters  as  well,  that  a  woman  who  handled 
her  like  a  baby  rather  paralysed  her.  She  also 
exhibited  a  penchant  for  wearing  her  old  clothes 
out  —  to  rags,  that  is  —  in  private.  But  I  think 
she  is  getting  over  that  now.  I  received  her  dress- 
maker's latest  bill  this  morning.  It  reveals  dis- 
tinct signs  of  progress." 

"And  I  hear  she  looks  just  beautiful." 

"She  does.  I  must  admit  that." 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       133 

"  Then"  —  the  old  lady  raised  herself  a  little  in 
her  chair,  and  settled  her  spectacles  with  her  un- 
paralysed  hand  —  "  what  is  the  trouble  between 
the  two  of  you,  Johnny  Carr?" 

Juggernaut  laid  down  his  tea-cup  with  a  slight 
clatter. 

"I  was  not  aware,"  he  said  curtly,  "that  there 
was  any  trouble." 

Mrs.  Carfrae  surveyed  him  long  and  balefully 
over  her  spectacles. 

"Johnny  Carr,"  she  observed  dispassionately, 
"I  have  known  you  ever  since  you  could  roar  for 
your  bottle,  and  I  have  never  had  patience  with 
you  either  then  or  since.  You  are  a  dour,  dreich, 
thrawn,  camstearie  creature.  You  have  more 
money  than  you  can  spend,  grand  health,  and  a 
young  and  beautiful  wife.  But  you  are  not  happy. 
You  come  here  to  tell  me  so,  and  when  I  ask  you 
to  begin,  you  say  there  is  nothing!  Well,  /  will 
tell  you  what  the  matter  is.  There  is  some  trouble 
between  you  and  your  Daphne." 

Considerable  courage  is  required  to  inform  a 
man  to  his  face  that  all  is  not  well  between  him 
and  his  wife;  but  courage  was  a  virtue  that  Els- 
peth  Carfrae  had  never  lacked.  Juggernaut  ex- 
perienced no  feeling  of  resentment  or  surprise 
that  this  old  lady  should  have  instantaneously 
sized  up  a  situation  which  he  himself  had  been 
investigating  in  a  groping  and  uncertain  fashion 


134  FLICKERINGS 

for  nearly  three  years.  Life  is  a  big  book  of  prob- 
lems, and  while  man  is  content  to  work  them  out 
figure  by  figure,  taking  nothing  for  granted  which 
cannot  be  approved  by  established  formulae, 
woman  has  an  exasperating  habit  of  skipping 
straight  to  the  solution,  in  a  manner  which  causes 
the  conscientious  and  methodical  male  to  suspect 
her  of  peeping  at  the  answers  at  the  end  of  the 
book. 

"Perhaps  you  had  not  realised  that,"  pursued 
Mrs.  Carfrae.  "  Men  are  apt  to  be  slow  in  the  up- 
take," she  added  indulgently. 

"I  fail  to  see  where  you  get  your  data  from," 
replied  Juggernaut.  "I  have  not  been  particu- 
larly communicative  on  the  subject.  In  fact, 
I  don't  remember  telling  you  a  single  —  " 

Mrs.  Carfrae  subjected  him  to  a  withering 
glare. 

"If  all  that  women  knew,"  she  observed  frost- 
ily, "was  what  men  had  told  them,  I  wonder 
how  many  of  us  would  be  able  to  spell  our  own 
names!  No,  laddie,  you  have  told  me  nothing: 
that's  true  enough.  But  I  know  fine  why  you 
come  here  to-day.  You  are  worried.  You  and 
Daphne  are  getting  on  splendidly.  The  match 
has  been  a  great  success.  You  have  a  son  and 
heir.  But  —  you  are  not  happy;  and  it  is  about 
your  Daphne  that  you  are  not  happy." 

Juggernaut  gazed  into  the  fire. 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       135 

"You  are  right,"  he  said.  "I  confess  that  my 
marriage  has  not  been  so  uplifting  as  I  had  hoped. 
I  dare  say  it  is  my  own  fault.  As  you  point  out,  I 
am  —  well,  all  the  Caledonian  adjectives  you 
heaped  upon  me  just  now:  all  that  and  a  good  deal 
more.  I  have  the  reputation  of  being  a  harsh 
man,  and  I  hate  it.  I  hoped,  when  I  married  that 
child,  that  she  would  pull  me  out  of  my  rigid  un- 
deviating  way  of  life  and  broaden  my  sympathies 
a  little.  I  looked  forward  to  a  little  domesticity." 
His  dark  face  coloured  slightly.  "I  may  be  an 
ogre,  but  I  have  my  soft  side,  as  you  know." 

"None  better,"  said  the  old  lady  gently. 

"Well,  somehow,"  continued  Juggernaut,  "my 
marriage  has  not  made  the  difference  to  me  that 
I  had  hoped.  We  two  have  had  our  happy  hours 
together,  but  we  don't  seem  to  progress  beyond  a 
certain  point.  We  are  amiability  itself.  If  I  ask 
Daphne  to  see  to  anything  about  the  house,  she 
sees  to  it;  if  she  asks  me  to  go  with  her  to  a  tea- 
fight,  I  go.  But  that  seems  to  be  about  the  limit. 
I  can't  help  thinking  that  marriage  would  not 
have  survived  so  long  as  an  institution  if  there 
had  been  no  more  behind  it  than  that.  I  was 
under  the  impression  that  it  made  two  one.  At 
present  we  are  still  two  —  very  decidedly  two; 
and  —  and  —  ' 

"And  being  you,  it  just  maddens  you  not  to  be 
able  to  get  your  money's  worth,"  said  Mrs.  Car- 


136  FLICKERINGS 

frae  calmly.  "Now,  John  Carr,  just  listen  to  me. 
First  of  all,  have  you  had  any  trouble  with  her?  " 

"Trouble?" 

"Yes.  Any  direct  disagreement  with  her?" 

"Never.  Stop  —  we  had  one  small  breeze." 

Mrs.  Carfrae  wagged  a  forefinger. 

"You  have  been  bullying  her,  monster!" 

"Heavens,  no!" 

"Well,  tell  me  the  story." 

"Six  months  agone,"  said  Juggernaut,  "she 
came  to  me  and  asked  for  money  —  much  as  a 
child  asks  for  toffee  —  with  a  seraphic  smile  and 
an  ingratiating  rub  up  against  my  chair.  I  asked 
her  what  it  was  for." 

"Quite  wrong!"  said  Mrs.  Carfrae  promptly. 

"But  surely —  "  began  Juggernaut,  the  man 
of  business  up  in  arms  at  once. 

"You  should  have  begun  by  taking  out  your 
cheque-book  and  saying  'How  much?'"  con- 
tinued his  admonitress.  "Then  she  would  have 
called  you  a  dear,  or  some  such  English  term  of 
affection,  and  recognising  you  as  her  natural  con- 
fidant would  have  told  you  everything.  After  that 
you  might  have  improved  the  occasion.  As  it  was, 
you  just  put  her  back  up,  and  she  dithered." 

"She  did,  so  far  as  I  understand  the  expression. 
But,  finding  that  I  was  firm  —  ' 

"Oh,  man,  man,  how  can  a  great  grown  creat- 
ure like  you  bear  to  be  firm  —  hard,  you  mean, 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       137 

of  course  —  with  a  wild,  unbroken  lass  like  that? 
Well,  go  on.  You  were  firm.  And  what  did  her 
poor  ladyship  say  she  wanted  the  money  for?" 

"For  he?  young  cub  of  a  brother,"  said  Jugger- 
naut briefly. 

"  A  wealthy  young  wife  daring  to  want  to  help 
her  own  brother!  Monstrous!"  observed  Mrs. 
Carfrae. 

"I  think  you  are  unjust  to  me  in  this  matter. 
Listen!  When  I  married  Daphne  I  was  aware 
that  she  would  want  to  finance  her  entire  family: 
in  fact,  it  was  one  of  the  inducements  to  marrying 
me  which  I  laid  before  her.  For  that  purpose,  to 
save  her  the  embarrassment  of  constantly  coming 
to  me  for  supplies,  I  settled  upon  her  a  private 
allowance  of  —  what  do  you  think?" 

"Out  with  it!  No  striving  after  effect  with  me, 
my  man ! "  was  the  reply  of  his  unimpressionable 
audience. 

"I  gave  her  a  thousand  a  year,"  said  Jugger- 
naut. 

"That  should  have  been  sufficient,"  said  Mrs. 
Carfrae  composedly.  "  But  do  not  be  ostentatious 
about  it.  You  could  well  afford  the  money." 

"  Well,  she  had  spent  most  of  that  year's  allow- 
ance in  six  months,"  continued  Juggernaut,  dis- 
regarding these  gibes,  "on  her  father's  curate, 
the  younger  children's  education,  and  so  forth  — 
and  she  wanted  more." 


138  FLICKERINGS 

"What  age  is  this  brother?" 

"Twenty,  I  think.  He  is  up  at  Cambridge,  and 
wants  to  get  into  the  Army  as  a  University  can- 
didate. At  present  he  appears  to  be  filling  in  his 
time  philandering  with  a  tobacconist's  daughter. 
The  tobacconist's  bill  for  moral  and  intellectual 
damage  came  to  five  hundred  pounds.  Before 
writing  the  cheque,  I  stipulated  —  " 

"You  would!"  said  the  old  lady  grimly. 

" —  That  I  should  be  permitted  to  make  a  few 
investigations  on  my  own  behalf.  Young  Vereker 
is  a  handsome,  fascinating  rascal,  with  about  as 
much  moral  fibre  as  a  Yahoo.  He  was  a  good  deal 
franker  in  his  admissions  to  me  than  he  had  been 
to  his  sister  —  " 

"Aye,  I  once  heard  you  cross-examining  a 
body,"  confirmed  Mrs.  Carfrae. 

"  —  And  on  the  completion  of  my  enquiries  I 
paid  the  money  down  on  the  nail.  It  was  the  only 
thing  to  do." 

"Did  you  tell  Daphne  the  whole  story?" 

"No.  I  should  hate  to  dispel  her  illusions.  She 
loves  her  brothers  and  sisters." 

"There  is  no  need  to  excuse  yourself,  John 
Carr.  I  knew  fine  that  you  would  not  tell  her.  In- 
stead, you  glowered  at  her,  and  read  her  a  lecture 
about  extravagance  and  improvidence.  She  tried 
to  look  prim  and  penitent,  but  danced  down  the 
stair  the  moment  she  got  the  door  shut  behind 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       139 

her.  Now,  mannie,  listen  to  me.  This  is  no  light 
charge  you  have  taken  on  yourself  —  to  rule  a 
wild,  shy,  impulsive  taupie  like  that.  You  cannot 
contain  the  like  with  bit  and  bridle,  mind.  I  have 
been  one  myself,  and  I  know.  There  is  just  one 
thing  to  do.  She  must  learn  to  love  you,  or  the 
lives  of  the  pair  of  you  will  go  stramash!" 

Juggernaut's  old  friend  concluded  this  homily 
with  tremendous  emphasis,  and  there  was  a  long 
silence.  Then  the  man  drew  his  chair  a  little 
closer. 

" How  can  I  teach  her?  "  he  asked  humbly.  "  I 
have  no  finesse,  no  attractiveness.  Do  you  think 
I  —  I  am  too  old  for  her?" 

"Old?  Toots!  I  was  nineteen  when  I  married 
on  my  Andy,  and  he  was  thirty-nine.  For  the 
first  few  years  after  we  married  I  called  him 
*  Daddy*  to  his  face.  After  that  I  found  that  I 
was  really  old  enough  to  be  the  man's  mother;  so 
I  called  him  'Sonny.'  But  that  is  a  digression.  I 
will  tell  you  how  to  teach  her.  Do  not  be  mono- 
tonous. It's  no  use  just  to  be  a  good  husband  to 
her:  any  gowk  can  be  that.  Do  not  let  your  affec- 
tion run  on  in  a  regular,  dutiful  stream:  have  a 
spate  occasionally!  Get  whirled  off  your  feet  by 
her,  and  let  her  see  it.  Prepare  some  unexpected 
ploy  for  her.  Carry  her  off  to  dine  somewhere 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment  —  just  your  two  selves. 


140  FLICKERINGS 

Stop  her  suddenly  on  the  staircase  in  a  half-light, 
and  give  her  a  hug.'* 

"She'd  never  stand  it!"  cried  Juggernaut  in 
dismay.  "And  I  could  never  do  it,"  he  added  ap- 
prehensively. 

"You  do  it,  my  callant,"  said  Mrs.  Carfrae 
with  decision,  "and  she'll  stand  it  right  enough! 
She  may  tell  you  not  to  be  foolish,  but  she  will  not 
make  a  point  of  coming  down  by  the  back  stair  in 
future,  for  all  that.  And  let  her  see  that  with  you 
she  comes  first  in  everything.  What  a  crow  she 
will  have  to  herself  when  she  realises  that  a  feck- 
less, unbusinesslike  piece  like  herself  has  crept 
right  into  the  inmost  place  in  the  heart  of  a  man 
whose  gods  used  to  be  hard  work  and  hard  words 
and  hard  knocks!  She'll  just  glory  in  you! 

"Lastly,  do  not  be  discouraged  if  you  have  no 
success  to  begin  with.  At  all  costs  you  must  keep 
on  smiling.  A  dour,  bleak  man  is  no  fit  compan- 
ion for  a  young  girl  who  has  always  lived  a  shel- 
tered, sunny  life.  He  just  withers  her.  She  may 
last  for  a  while,  and  do  her  duty  by  him,  but  in 
time  he  '11  break  her  heart.  Aye,  keep  on  smiling, 
Johnny,  even  if  she  hurts  you.  She  will  hurt  you 
often.  Young  girls  are  like  that.  It  takes  time 
for  a  woman  to  realise  that  a  man  is  just  about 
twice  as  sensitive  as  herself  in  certain  matters, 
and  she  will  not  make  allowances  for  you  at  first. 
But  until  she  does  —  and  she  will,  if  you  give  her 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       141 

time  —  keep  on  smiling!  If  you  keep  on  long 
enough,  you  will  get  your  reward.  Make  the 
effort,  my  man !  I  have  had  to  make  efforts  in  my 
time  —  " 

"I  know  that,"  said  Juggernaut. 

" — And  the  efforts  have  been  the  making  of 
me.  For  one  thing  I  have  acquired  a  sense  of  pro- 
portion. When  we  are  young  and  lusty,  our  know- 
ledge of  perspective  is  so  elementary  that  in  our 
picture  of  life  our  own  Ego  fills  the  foreground 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  else;  with  this  result,  that 
we  get  no  view  of  the  countless  interesting  and 
profitable  things  that  lie  behind.  My  Ego  is  kept 
in  better  order  these  days,  I  assure  you.  It  gets 
just  a  good  comfortable  place  in  the  picture  and 
no  more.  If  Elspeth  Carfrae  stirs  from  that,  or 
comes  creeping  too  far  forward  so  as  to  block  out 
other  things,  she  hears  from  me!" 

"Does  she  always  obey  you?"  asked  Jugger- 
naut. 

"She  got  far  beyond  my  control  once,"  ad- 
mitted the  old  lady.  "I  mind  when  my  Andy 
went  from  me,  she  swelled  and  swelled,  until 
she  blotted  out  everything  —  earth,  sea,  and  sky. 
But  she  has  been  back  in  her  place  these  twenty 
years,  and  there  she  shall  bide.  There  is  no  great 
selfish  Ego  blocking  the  view  now  when  I  sit  and 
look  out  upon  my  section  of  the  world.  You  have 
no  idea  how  interesting  it  is  to  study  your  friends' 


142  FLICKERINGS 

troubles  instead  of  your  own,  John.  The  beauty 
of  it  is  that  you  need  not  worry  over  them:  you 
just  watch  them  —  unconcernedly." 

The  Scots  have  their  own  notion  of  what  con- 
stitutes an  excursion  into  the  realms  of  humour, 
and  Juggernaut,  knowing  this,  made  no  attempt 
to  controvert  his  hostess's  last  statement. 

"Not  that  I  grudged  my  Andy,"  continued  the 
old  lady  presently.  "  No  wife  worthy  of  the  name 
could  grudge  her  man  to  his  country  when  he  died 
as  Andy  died.  But  my  only  son  —  that  was  my 
own  fault,  maybe.  I  would  not  put  him  into  the 
army  like  his  father,  thinking  to  keep  him  safer 
that  way;  and  he  died  of  pneumonia  at  seven-and- 
twenty,  an  East  End  curate.  Then  my  Lintie. 
But  I  have  no  need  to  be  talking  of  Lintie  to  you, 
John  Carr.  You  mind  her  still,  Daphne  or  no 
Daphne.  Then"  —  she  indicated  her  paralysed 
shoulder  —  "this!  But  I  keep  on  smiling.  Per- 
haps that  is  why  people  are  so  kind  to  me.  Per- 
haps if  I  did  not  smile  they  would  not  seek  my 
company  so  freely.  I  suppose  they  see  something 
in  me,  that  they  come  and  listen  to  me  havering. 
When  I  first  settled  down  here  by  myself,  in  this 
little  house,  many  kind  people  called.  I  never 
thought  to  see  them  twice;  but  they  come  again 
and  again.  Maybe  it  is  because  English  people 
have  a  notion  that  the  Scots'  tongue  is  *  so  quaint ' ! 
They  seem  to  find  something  exhilarating  in  hear- 


A  HORSE  TO  THE  WATER       143 

ing  fish  called  fush.  Not  that  I  call  it  any  such 
thing,  but  they  think  I  do.  Anyhow,  they  come. 
Some  of  them  bring  their  troubles  with  them,  and 
go  away  without  them.  When  they  do  that,  I 
know  that  it  was  worth  while  to  keep  a  smiling 
face  all  these  years.  So  smile  yourself,  Johnny 
Carr !  And  some  day,  when  your  Daphne  comes 
and  puts  her  head  on  your  shoulder  and  tells  you 
all  that  is  troubling  her,  you  will  know  that  you 
have  won  through.  And  when  that  happens,  come 
and  tell  me.  I  like  to  hear  when  my  methods 
succeed." 

"I  will  remember,"  said  Juggernaut  gravely. 
"Good-bye." 

Mrs.  Carfrae  watched  his  broad  back  through 
the  doorway. 

"But  I  doubt  you  will  both  have  to  be  worse 
before  you  are  better,"  she  added  to  herself. 

An  hour  later,  Lady  Carr,  a  radiant  vision  of 
glinting  hair  and  rustling  skirts,  on  her  way  up- 
stairs to  dress  for  dinner,  encountered  her  husband 
coming  down.  There  was  a  half-light.  Sir  John 
paused. 

"Are  you  dining  any  where  to-night,  Daphne?" 
he  said. 

Daphne,  her  youthful  shrewdness  uneradicated 
by  three  years  of  adult  society,  replied  guardedly: 

"Are  you  trying  to  pull  my  leg?  If  I  say  'No,' 


144  FLICKERINGS 

will  you  tell  me  that  in  that  case  I  shall  be  very 
hungry  by  bedtime,  or  something?  I  suppose  that 
old  chestnut  has  just  got  round  to  your  club. 
Have  you  been  electing  Noah  an  honorary  mem- 
ber?" 

"I  was  about  to  suggest,"  said  Juggernaut 
perseveringly,  "that  we  should  go  and  dine  at  the 
Savoy  together." 

Daphne  dimpled  into  a  delighted  smile. 

"You  dear!  And  we  might  go  on  somewhere 
afterwards.  What  would  you  like  me  to  wear?" 

She  preened  herself  in  anticipation. 

"Oh,  anything,"  said  Juggernaut  absently. 

He  was  regarding  his  wife  in  an  uncertain  and 
embarrassed  fashion. 

Suddenly  he  drew  a  deep  breath,  and  took  a 
step  down  towards  her.  Then,  with  equal  sud- 
denness, he  turned  on  his  heel  and  retired  upstairs 
rather  precipitately  in  the  direction  of  his  dress- 
ing-room. 

It  was  as  well  that  Mrs.  Carfrae  was  not 
present! 


CHAPTER  X 

A  DAY   IN   THE   LIFE  OP  A   SOCIAL  SUCCESS 


BY  nine  o'clock  next  morning  Lady  Carr,  be- 
comingly arrayed,  was  sitting  up  in  bed  munching 
a  hearty  breakfast,  and  reflecting  according  to 
her  habit  upon  yesterday's  experiences  and  to- 
day's arrangements. 

She  had  dined  with  her  husband  at  the  Savoy, 
but  the  meal  had  not  been  quite  such  a  success  as 
she  had  anticipated.  Juggernaut  had  treated  her 
with  the  restrained  courtesy  which  was  habitual 
to  him ;  but  ladies  who  are  taken  out  to  dinner  at 
the  Savoy,  even  by  their  husbands,  usually  ex- 
pect something  more  than  restrained  courtesy. 
You  must  be  animated  on  these  occasions  — 
unless,  of  course,  you  happen  to  be  a  newly  en- 
gaged couple,  in  which  case  the  world  benignantly 
washes  its  hands  of  you  —  or  the  evening  writes 
itself  down  a  failure.  Juggernaut  had  not  been 
animated.  He  had  ordered  a  dinner  which  to 
Daphne's  gratification  and  surprise  —  she  had 
not  credited  him  with  so  much  observation  — 
had  consisted  almost  entirely  of  her  favourite 


146  FLICKERINGS 

dishes.   But  he  had  not  sparkled,  and  sparkle  at 
the  Savoy,  as  already  intimated,  is  essential. 

About  ten  o'clock  he  had  been  called  away  to 
an  important  division  in  the  House,  and  Daphne 
had  gone  on  to  a  party,  escorted  by  her  husband's 
secretary,  factotum,  and  right-hand  man,  one 
Jim  Carthew,  who  arrived  from  Grosvenor  Street 
in  answer  to  a  telephone  summons.  Carthew  was 
a  new  friend  of  Daphne's.  She  accumulated 
friends  much  as  a  honey-pot  accumulates  flies,  but 
Jim  Carthew  counted  for  more  than  most.  They 
had  never  met  until  five  weeks  ago,  for  Carthew 
had  always  been  up  North  engaged  on  colliery 
business  when  Daphne  was  in  London,  and  when 
Daphne  was  at  Belton,  her  husband's  old  home 
near  Kilchester,  Carthew  had  been  occupied  by 
secretarial  work  in  town.  But  they  had  known  one 
another  by  name  and  fame  ever  since  Daphne's 
marriage,  and  at  last  they  had  met.  Daphne  was 
not  slow  to  understand  why  her  husband,  impa- 
tient of  assistance  as  he  usually  was,  had  always 
appeared  ready  to  heap  labour  and  responsibility 
upon  these  youthful  shoulders.  Carthew  was 
barely  thirty,  but  he  was  perfectly  capable  of 
upholding  and  furthering  his  leader's  interests  in 
the  great  industrial  North;  while  down  South  it 
was  generally  held  that  whenever  he  grew  tired 
of  devilling  for  Juggernaut  the  Party  would  find 
him  a  seat  for  the  asking. 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS  147 

But  so  far  Carthew  seemed  loath  to  forsake  the 
man  who  had  taught  him  all  he  knew.  He  cher- 
ished a  theory,  somewhat  unusual  in  a  rising  man, 
that  common  decency  requires  of  a  pupil  that  he 
should  endeavour  to  repay  his  master,  at  the  end 
of  the  period  of  instruction,  by  a  period  of  personal 
service. 

He  was  a  freckle-faced  youth,  with  a  frank 
smile  of  considerable  latitude,  and  a  boyish  zeal 
for  the  healthy  pursuits  of  life.  He  possessed 
brains  and  character,  as  any  man  must  who  served 
under  Juggernaut;  and  like  his  master  he  was  a 
shrewd  judge  of  men.  Of  his  capacity  for  dealing 
with  women,  Daphne  knew  less;  but  she  had 
already  heard  rumours  —  confidences  exchanged 
over  tea-cups  and  behind  fans — of  a  certain  Miss 
Nina  Tallentyre,  perhaps  the  acknowledged 
beauty  of  that  season,  at  the  flame  of  whose  altar 
Jim  Carthew  was  said  to  have  singed  his  wings 
in  a  conspicuously  reckless  fashion.  But  all  this 
was  the  merest  hearsay,  and  Daphne  was  unac- 
quainted with  the  lady  into  the  bargain.  Possibly 
it  was  with  a  view  to  remedying  this  deficiency 
in  her  circle  of  acquaintance  that  she  kept  Jim 
Carthew  at  her  side  for  the  space  of  half  an  hour 
after  they  reached  Mrs.  Blankney-Pushkins'  re- 
ception. 

After  a  couple  of  waltzes  Lady  Carr  expressed 
a  desire  to  be  fed  with  ices  and  cream  buns. 


148  FLICKERINGS 

Mr.  Carthew  assented,  but  with  less  enthusi- 
asm than  before.  Daphne  noticed  that  his  eye 
was  beginning  to  wander. 

"After  that,"  she  continued  cheerfully,  "we 
will  find  seats,  and  you  shall  tell  me  who  every- 
body is.  I  am  still  rather  a  country  mouse." 

"I  should  think  so!"  said  Carthew,  reluctantly 
recalling  his  gaze  from  a  distant  corner  of  the  re- 
freshment room.  "I  beg  your  pardon!  You  were 
saying — ?" 

"  Perhaps  there  is  some  one  else  whom  you  have 
promised  to  dance  with,  though,"  continued  the 
country  mouse  demurely. 

Carthew,  whose  eye  had  slid  stealthily  round 
once  more  in  the  direction  of  the  supper-party 
in  the  corner,  recovered  himself  resolutely,  and 
made  the  only  reply  that  gallantry  permitted. 

"That's  all  right,  then,"  said  Daphne.  "Tell 
me  who  those  people  are,  having  supper  over 
there.  That  man  with  the  fierce  black  eyes  — 
who  is  he?  He  looks  wicked." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  Carthew,  resigning 
himself  to  his  fate,  "he  is  about  the  most  com- 
monplace bore  in  the  room.  If  he  takes  a  girl  in 
to  dinner  he  talks  to  her  about  the  weather  with 
the  soup,  the  table  decorations  with  the  fish,  and 
suffragettes  with  the  entree.  About  pudding- 
time  he  takes  the  bit  between  his  teeth  and 
launches  out  into  a  description  of  the  last  play  he 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS   149 

saw  —  usually  Charley1  s  Aunt  or  East  Lynne. 
When  he  unexpectedly  encounters  a  friend  at 
a  seaside  watering-place,  he  observes  that  'the 
world  is  a  very  small  place.'  At  his  own  funeral 
(to  which  I  shall  send  a  wreath)  he  will  sit  up  and 
thank  the  mourners  for  'this  personal  tribute 
of  affection  and  esteem." 

Daphne  sat  regarding  this  exhibition  of  the 
art  of  conversation  with  some  interest.  She  ob- 
served that  Carthew's  wits  were  wandering,  and 
that  with  inherent  politeness  he  was  exercising  a 
purely  mechanical  faculty  to  entertain  her  pend- 
ing their  return.  Jim  Carthew  was  a  true  Briton 
in  that  he  hated  revealing  his  deeper  thoughts  to 
the  eyes  of  the  world.  But  unlike  the  ordinary 
Briton,  who,  when  his  feelings  do  get  the  better 
of  him,  finds  himself  reduced  to  silent  and  por- 
tentous gloom,  he  instinctively  clothed  his  naked, 
shrinking  soul  in  a  garment  of  irresponsible  friv- 
olity. The  possession  of  this  faculty  is  a  doubt- 
ful blessing,  for  it  deprives  many  a  deserving 
sufferer  of  the  sympathy  which  is  his  right,  and 
which  would  be  his  could  he  but  take  the  world 
into  his  confidence.  But  the  world  can  never 
rid  itself  of  the  notion  that  only  still  waters  run 
deep.  Consequently  Jim  Carthew  passed  in  the 
eyes  of  most  of  his  friends  as  a  kindly,  light- 
hearted,  rather  soulless  trifler.  But  Daphne  was 
not  altogether  deceived.  She  took  an  instinctive 


150  FLICKERINGS 

interest  in  this  young  man.  She  interrupted  his 
feverish  monologue,  and  enquired :  — 

"Tell  me,  who  is  that  girl?  The  tall  one,  with 
fair  hair  and  splendid  black  eyes." 

"What  is  she  dressed  in?"  asked  Carthew,  sur- 
veying the  throng  with  studied  diligence. 

"Flame-coloured  chiffon,"  said  Daphne. 

"That  is  a  Miss  Tallentyre,"  replied  Carthew 
carelessly.  "Do  you  think  she  is  pretty?"  he 
added,  after  a  slightly  strained  pause. 

"I  think  she  is  perfectly  magnificent.  Do  you 
know  her?" 

"Er  — yes." 

"Will  you  introduce  me?"  asked  Daphne.  "I 
should  like  to  know  her.  See,  she  has  just  sent 
away  her  partner.  Take  me  over  and  leave  me 
with  her,  and  then  you  will  be  free  to  run  off  and 
find  the  charmer  I  can  see  you  are  so  anxious 
about." 

The  hapless  Carthew  having  asserted,  this 
time  with  considerably  more  sincerity,  that  he 
had  now  no  further  thoughts  of  dancing,  the 
introduction  was  effected.  The  sequel  lay 
this  morning  upon  Daphne's  breakfast-tray, 
amid  a  heap  of  invitations,  —  Daphne  was  in 
great  request  at  present,  —  in  the  form  of  a 
note  written  upon  thick  blue  paper  in  a  large 
and  rather  ostentatious  feminine  hand.  It 
ran, — 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS   151 

DEAR  LADY  CARR:  Don't  consider  me  a  for- 
ward young  person  if  I  ask  you  to  be  an  angel 
and  come  and  lunch  with  me  to-day.  I  know  all 
sorts  of  ceremonies  ought  to  be  observed  before 
such  a  climax  is  reached ;  but  will  you  take  them 
for  granted  and  come  ?  We  had  such  a  tiny  talk 
last  night,  and  I  do  so  want  to  know  you  better. 
I  have  been  dying  to  make  your  acquaintance 
ever  since  I  first  saw  you. 

Sincerely  yours, 

NINA  TALLENTYRE. 

Daphne  was  not  the  sort  of  girl  to  take  it  amiss 
that  she,  a  married  woman  of  twenty-three,  with 
a  husband  and  baby  of  her  own,  should  inform- 
ally be  bidden  to  a  feast  by  a  young  person  pre- 
viously unknown  to  her,  who  possessed  neither. 
In  any  case  the  last  sentence  would  have  been  too 
much  for  her  vanity.  She  scribbled  a  note  of  ac- 
ceptance to  Miss  Tallentyre's  invitation,  and  set 
about  her  morning  toilet. 

Once  downstairs,  she  paid  her  usual  punctilious 
visit  to  the  library,  where  her  husband  was  usu- 
ally to  be  found  until  twelve  o'clock.  She  en- 
quired in  her  breezy  fashion  after  the  health  of 
the  Mother  of  Parliaments,  and  expressed  a  hope 
that  her  spouse  had  come  home  at  a  reasonable 
hour  and  enjoyed  a  proper  night's  rest.  She  next 
proceeded  to  the  orders  of  the  day. 


152  FLICKERINGS 

"Are  you  dining  out  to-night,  dear?"  she  en- 
quired. 

"  Yes,  for  my  sins !  A  City  dinner  at  six-thirty." 

'"You'll  be  bad  the  morn!"  quoted  Lady 
Carr. 

"True  for  you,  Daphne.  Are  you  going  any- 
where?" 

"No." 

"Well,  you  had  better  have  Carthew  to  dine 
with  you,  and  then  he  can  take  you  to  the  theatre 
afterwards.  Sorry  I  can't  manage  it  my  —  for 
our  two  selves,"  he  added,  guiltily  conscious  of 
Mrs.  Carfrae's  recent  homily. 

But  Daphne  was  quite  satisfied  with  the  ar- 
rangement, which  she  designated  top-hole. 

"Now,  I  am  off  shopping,"  she  announced. 
"After  that  I  am  lunching  with  a  girl  I  met  last 
night;  then  Hurlingham,  with  the  Peabodys.  If 
you  are  going  gorging  at  six-thirty,  I  probably 
shan't  see  you  again  to-day;  so  I'll  say  good- 
night now.  Pleasant  dreams!  I  am  off  to  play 
with  Baby  before  I  go  out.  So  long!" 

She  presented  her  husband  with  his  diurnal 
kiss,  and  departed  in  search  of  Master  Brian  Vere- 
ker  Carr,  whose  domain  was  situated  in  the  upper 
regions  of  the  house.  Here  for  a  time  the  beauti- 
ful and  stately  consort  of  Sir  John  Carr  merged 
into  the  Daphne  of  old  —  Daphne,  the  little 
mother  of  all  the  world,  the  inventor  of  new  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS    153 

delightful  games  and  repairer  of  all  damages  in- 
curred therein.  Her  son's  rubicund  and  puckered 
countenance  lightened  at  her  approach.  He  per- 
mitted his  latest  tooth  to  be  exhibited  without 
remonstrance :  he  nodded  affably,  even  encourag- 
ingly, over  his  mother's  impersonation  of  a  dying 
pig;  and  paid  her  the  supreme  compliment  of 
howling  lustily  on  her  departure. 

Master  Carr  never  interviewed  his  parents 
simultaneously.  His  father's  visits  —  not  quite 
so  constrained  as  one  might  imagine,  once  the 
supercilious  nurse  had  been  removed  out  of  ear- 
shot —  usually  took  place  in  the  evening,  just 
before  dinner,  but  father  and  mother  never  came 
together.  Had  they  done  so,  it  is  possible  that 
this  narrative  might  have  followed  a  different 
course.  A  common  interest,  especially  when  it 
possesses  its  father's  mouth  and  its  mother's 
eyes,  with  a  repertory  of  solemn  but  attractive 
tricks  with  its  arms  and  legs  thrown  in,  is  apt  to 
be  a  very  uniting  thing. 

II 

Daphne  duly  lunched  with  Miss  Tallentyre. 

"May  I  call  you  Daphne?'*  the  siren  asked,  in 
a  voice  which  intimated  that  a  request  from  some 
people  is  as  good  as  a  command  from  most.  "I 
have  taken  a  fancy  to  you;  and  when  I  do  that  to 
anybody  —  which  is  n't  often  —  I  say  so.  My 


154  FLICKERINGS 

dear,  you  are  perfectly  lovely !  I  wish  I  had  your 
complexion.  You  don't  put  anything  on  it,  do 
you?" 

"Soap,"  said  Daphne  briefly.  She  was  not  of 
the  sort  which  takes  "fancies"  readily. 

Miss  Tallentyre  smiled,  lazily. 

"I  see  you  have  n't  got  the  hang  of  me  yet," 
she  drawled.  "You  are  a  little  offended  with  me. 
Most  people  are  at  first,  but  they  soon  find  that 
it's  not  really  rudeness  —  only  me!  —  and  they 
soon  come  round.  I  don't  go  in  for  rouge  either: 
like  you,  I  don't  need  it.  But  I  have  to  touch  up 
my  eyebrows.  They  are  quite  tragically  sandy, 
and  my  face  looks  perfectly  insipid  if  I  leave  them 
as  they  are."  She  laughed  again.  "Have  I 
shocked  you?  You  see,  I  believe  in  being  frank 
about  things  —  don't  you?  Be  natural  —  be 
yourself  —  say  what  you  think !  That  is  the  only 
true  motto  in  life,  is  n't  it?" 

Daphne  agreed,  cautiously.  She  had  not  yet 
plumbed  this  rather  peculiar  young  woman.  It 
had  never  occurred  to  her,  in  the  whole  course  of 
her  frank,  ingenuous  existence,  to  ask  herself 
whether  she  was  herself  or  not.  Such  things  were 
too  high  for  her.  She  began  to  feel  that  she  had 
been  somewhat  remiss  in  the  matter.  Miss  Tal- 
lentyre appeared  to  have  made  a  specialty  of  it. 

But  as  shrewd  Daphne  was  soon  to  discern  for 
herself,  this  was  only  pretty  Nina's  way.  A  more 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS     155 

confirmed  poseuse  never  angled  for  the  indiscrim- 
inate admiration  of  mankind.  Nina  Tallentyre 
was  no  fool.  Having  observed  that  in  order  to 
become  conspicuous  in  this  world  it  is  an  advan- 
tage to  possess  marked  individuality,  and  having 
none  of  her  own  beyond  that  conferred  by  her 
face  and  figure,  she  decided  to  manufacture  an 
individuality  for  herself.  She  accordingly  selected 
what  she  considered  the  most  suitable  of  the  roles 
at  her  disposal,  rehearsed  it  to  her  satisfaction, 
assumed  it  permanently,  and  played  it,  it  must  be 
confessed,  uncommonly  well.  Her  pose  was  that 
of  the  blunt  and  candid  child  of  nature,  and  her 
performances  ranged  from  unblushing  flattery 
towards  those  with  whom  she  desired  to  stand 
well  to  undisguised  rudeness  towards  those  whom 
she  disliked  and  did  not  think  it  necessary  to 
conciliate. 

Her  method  prospered.  Whatever  wise  men 
may  think  or  say  of  us,  fools  usually  take  us  at 
our  own  valuation.  Consequently  Miss  Tallen- 
tyre never  lacked  a  majority  of  admirers.  She 
set  a  very  high  price  upon  her  friendship,  too, 
conferring  it  only  as  an  exceptional  favour;  and 
the  public,  which  always  buys  on  the  rise,  had 
long  since  rushed  in  and  bulled  Miss  Tallentyre's 
stock  —  her  beauty,  her  wit,  her  transparent 
honesty  —  sky  high. 

The  luncheon  was  a  tete-a-te"te  function,  the 


156  FLICKERINGS 

parent-birds,  as  Miss  Tallentyre  termed  them, 
being  absent  upon  a  country  visit.  Afterwards 
Russian  cigarettes  and  liqueur  brandy  were  served 
with  coffee.  Daphne  declined  these  manly  luxu- 
ries, but  her  hostess  took  both. 

"Not  that  I  like  them,"  she  explained  with  a 
plaintive  little  sigh,  "but  it  looks  chic;  and  one 
must  be  chic  or  die.  Besides,  I  am  doing  it  to  an- 
noy one  of  my  admirers  —  one  of  those  simple- 
minded,  early  Victorian,  John  Bullish  creatures 
who  dislike  seeing  a  girl  smoke,  or  drink  cognac, 
or  go  to  the  theatre  without  a  chaperone.  Here  is 
his  latest  effusion:  it  will  make  you  shriek." 

She  picked  up  a  letter  from  a  little  table  by  her 
side,  and  began  to  read  aloud. 

'  *  Nina,  dear  child,  I  know  you  don't  care  for 
me  any  more,'  —  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  never  cared 
for  him  at  any  time,  —  '  but  I  can't  help  still  tak- 
ing an  interest  in  you,  and  all  that.  I  must  say 
this.  On  Tuesday  night  I  saw  you  sitting  at  sup- 
per with  two  men  at  the  Vallombrosa,  without 
anybody  else  to  keep  you  in  countenance,  sipping 
liqueur  brandy  and  smoking.  Well,  don't  — 
there 's  a  dear !  You  simply  don't  know  what  cruel 
things  people  say  about  a  girl  who  does  that  sort 
of  thing  in  public.  Of  course  /  know  that  you  are 
absolutely—  '" 

But  Lady  Can*  was  on  her  feet,  slightly 
flushed. 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS    157 

"I  think  I  must  be  going  now,"  she  said.  "I 
had  no  idea  it  was  so  late.  I  have  to  meet  some 
people  at  Hurlingham." 

"  Sorry  you  have  to  rush  off,"  said  Miss  Tallen- 
tyre  regretfully;  "we  were  so  cosy.  Isn't  this 
letter  perfectly  sweet?" 

Daphne,  who  was  glowing  hotly,  suddenly 
spoke  her  mind. 

"If  an  honest  man,"  she  said,  "wrote  me  a 
letter  like  that,  I  don't  think  I  should  read  it 
aloud  to  total  strangers,  even  if  I  was  mortally 
offended  by  it.  It  does  n't  seem  to  me  cricket. 
Good-bye,  and  thank  you  so  much  for  asking  me 
to  lunch." 

"Not  altogether  a  successful  party,"  mused 
Daphne,  as  a  taxicab  conveyed  her  to  Hurling- 
ham. "What  a  hateful  girl !  And  yet,  at  the  back 
of  all  that  affectation  I  believe  there  is  something. 
I  could  n't  help  liking  her.  She  certainly  is  very 
lovely,  and  she  must  have  been  a  darling  before 
men  got  hold  of  her  and  spoiled  her.  ...  I  won- 
der if  that  letter  was  from  Jim  Carthew.  It 
sounded  like  his  blunt,  blundering  way  of  doing 
things.  Well,  he  is  well  rid  of  her,  anyhow.  — 
Hurrah!  here  is  Hurlingham,  and  there  are  the 
Peabodys !  How  lovely  to  see  the  trees  and  grass 
again !  And  the  dear  ponies ! " 

The  country -bred  girl  drew  a  long,  luxurious 
breath,  and  in  the  fullness  of  her  heart  grossly  over- 


158  FLICKERINGS 

paid  her  charioteer  on  alighting.  Then,  forgetting 
Miss  Tallentyre  and  her  exotic  atmosphere  utterly 
and  absolutely,  she  plunged  with  all  the  energy 
of  her  sunny  soul  into  the  sane  delights  and  whole- 
some joys  afforded  by  green  trees,  summer  skies, 
and  prancing  polo-ponies. 

in 

Daphne  concluded  her  day,  after  a  joyous  drive 
home  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  on  the  box-seat 
of  a  coach,  by  entertaining  Jim  Carthew  at  din- 
ner. Afterwards  he  was  to  take  her  to  The  Yeo- 
men of  the  Guard,  which  was  running  through  a 
revival  at  the  Savoy  Theatre.  Daphne  was  by  no 
means  a  blasee  Londoner  as  yet,  for  much  of  her 
short  married  life  had  been  spent  at  Bel  ton;  and 
the  theatre  was  still  an  abiding  joy  to  her.  On 
the  way  she  rattled  off  a  list  of  the  pieces  she  had 
seen. 

"And  you  have  never  been  to  a  Gilbert  and 
Sullivan  opera?"  asked  Carthew  incredulously. 

"No  —  never." 

"All  I  can  say  is  —  cheers!" 

"Why?" 

"  Supposing  you  were  a  benevolent  person  about 
to  introduce  a  small  boy  to  his  first  plum-pudding, 
you  would  feel  as  I  do,"  replied  her  companion. 
"But  wait.  Here  is  the  theatre:  we  are  in  the 
fourth  row  of  stalls." 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS    159 

Daphne  sat  raptly  through  the  first  act.  Once 
or  twice  her  laughter  rang  out  suddenly  and  spon- 
taneously like  a  child's,  and  indulgent  persons 
turned  and  smiled  sympathetically  upon  her;  but 
for  the  most  part  she  was  still  and  silent,  revelling 
in  Sullivan's  ever-limpid  music  and  following  the 
scenes  that  passed  before  her  with  breathless  at- 
tention. 

When  the  curtain  fell  slowly  upon  the  finale  of 
the  first  act,  —  the  suddenly  deserted  stage,  the 
bewildered  Fairfax  holding  his  fainting  bride  in 
his  arms,  and  the  black,  motionless  figure  of  the 
executioner  towering  over  all,  —  Daphne  drew  a 
long  and  tremulous  breath,  and  turned  to  her 
companion. 

"  I  understand  now  what  you  meant,"  she  said 
softly.  "  How  perfect,  to  be  able  to  bring  some  one 
here  for  the  first  time ! " 

"What  surprises  me,"  said  Carthew,  "is  that 
Sir  John  has  n't  brought  you  here  already.  I 
know  he  simply  loves  it." 

"I  am  usually  taken  to  places  like  the  Gaiety," 
confessed  Lady  Carr.  "Probably  Jack  considers 
them  more  suited  to  my  intellect.  —  Hallo,  here 
are  the  orchestra-men  crawling  out  of  their  holes 
again!  Good!" 

Presently  the  curtain  went  up  on  the  last  act, 
and  Jack  Point  introduced  a  selection  of  the  Merry 
Jests  of  Hugh  Ambrose,  to  the  audible  joy  of  the 


160  FLICKERINGS 

fourth  row  of  stalls.  The  Assistant  Tormentor 
and  his  beloved  were  likewise  warmly  received; 
but  presently  Daphne's  smiles  faded.  Poor  Jack 
Point's  tribulations  were  too  much  for  her:  dur- 
ing the  final  recurrence  of  /  Have  a  Song  to  Sing- 
01  tears  came,  and  as  the  curtain  fell  she  dabbed 
her  eyes  hurriedly  with  an  inadequate  handker- 
chief. 

"Awfully  sorry!"  she  murmured  apologetic- 
ally.   "Luckily  you  are  not  the  sort  to  laugh  at 


me." 


Carthew  silently  placed  her  wrap  round  her 
shoulders. 

"Mr.  Carthew,"  said  Daphne  suddenly,  "will 
you  take  me  somewhere  gay  for  supper?  It 
would  n't  be  awfully  improper,  would  it?  I  can't 
go  home  feeling  as  sad  as  this." 

"Come  along!"  said  Carthew. 

He  escorted  her  to  an  establishment  where  the 
electric  lights  blazed  bravely,  a  band  blared  forth 
a  cacophonous  cake-walk  apparently  entitled 
"By  Request,"  and  the  brightest  and  best  of  the 
Jeunesse  doree  of  London  mingled  in  sweet  com- 
panionship with  the  haughty  but  hungry  divin- 
ities of  the  musical  comedy  stage. 

Carthew  secured  a  table  in  a  secluded  corner, 
as  far  as  possible  from  the  band. 

"Sorry  to  have  given  you  the  hump,"  he  said, 
with  his  boyish  smile.  "Next  week  I  will  take 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS    161 

you  to  The  Mikado.  No  tears  there!  You  will 
laugh  till  you  cry.  Rather  a  bull  that  —  what  ?  " 

He  persevered  manfully  in  this  strain  in  his  en- 
deavour to  drive  away  impressionable  Daphne's 
distress  on  Jack  Point's  behalf,  and  ultimately 
succeeded. 

"I  hope  he  was  dead,  not  simply  in  a  faint,"  was 
her  final  reference  to  the  subject.  Then  she  con- 
tinued: "I  shall  take  them  all  to  see  that  lovely 
piece  —  separately.  I  am  not  sure  about  Nicky, 
though.  She  is  just  at  the  scoffing  age  now,  and 
I  don't  think  I  could  bear  it,  if  she  —  ' 

"Not  long  ago,"  said  Carthew,  "I  took  a  girl  — 
that  sort  of  girl  —  to  see  The  Yeomen  — " 

Daphne  regarded  him  covertly.  She  knew  the 
girl. 

"Well?  "she  said. 

"I  took  her  on  purpose,"  continued  Carthew 
—  "to  see  how  she  —  " 

Daphne,  deeply  interested,  nodded  compre- 
hendingly. 

"I  know,"  she  said.  "How  did  she  take 
it?" 

"She  never  stirred,"  said  Carthew,  "all  through 
the  last  act.  When  the  curtain  fell,  she  sat  on  for 
a  few  moments,  without  saying  a  word,  and  she 
never  spoke  all  the  time  I  was  taking  her  home. 
When  I  said  good-night  to  her,  she  —  she  said 
something  to  me.  It  was  not  much,  but  it  showed 


162  FLICKERINGS 

me  that  she  was  the  right  sort  after  all,  in  spite  of 
what  people  said  —  ' 

He  checked  himself  suddenly,  as  if  conscious 
that  his  reminiscences  were  becoming  somewhat 
intimate.  But  Daphne  nodded  a  serious  head. 

"I'm  glad,"  she  said  simply.  "One  likes  to  be 
right  about  one's  friends." 

Carthew  shot  a  grateful  glance  at  her;  and  pre- 
sently they  drifted  into  less  personal  topics,  mutu- 
ally conscious  that  here,  if  need  be,  was  a  friend 
—  an  understanding  friend. 

The  evening  had  yet  one  more  incident  in  store 
for  Daphne. 

Twelve-thirty,  the  Ultima  Thule  of  statutory 
indulgence,  —  the  hour  at  which  London,  thirty 
minutes  more  fortunate  than  Cinderella,  must 
perforce  fly  home  from  scenes  of  revelry  and  get 
ready  to  shake  the  mats,  —  was  fast  approach- 
ing; and  the  management  of  the  restaurant  be- 
gan, by  a  respectful  but  pertinacious  process  of 
light-extinguishing,  to  apprise  patrons  of  the 
fact. 

As  Daphne  and  Carthew  passed  through  the 
rapidly  emptying  vestibule  to  their  cab,  five 
flushed  young  gentlemen,  of  the  genus  under- 
graduate-on-the-spree,  suddenly  converged  upon 
the  scene  from  the  direction  of  the  bar,  locked 
together  in  a  promiscuous  and  not  altogether 
unprofitable  embrace.  They  were  urged  from 


THE  LIFE  OF  A  SOCIAL  SUCCESS    163 

the  rear  by  polite  but  inflexible  menials  in  brass 
buttons. 

"What  ho,  Daph!" 

The  cry  emanated  from  the  gentleman  who  was 
acting  for  the  moment  as  keystone  of  the  group. 

Daphne,  stepping  into  the  cab,  looked  back. 

"Mr.  Carthew,"  she  exclaimed,  "it's  Ally  — 
my  brother !  He  must  have  come  up  from  Cam- 
bridge for  the  day.  Do  go  and  bring  him  here." 

She  took  her  seat  in  the  hansom,  and  Carthew 
went  back.  Presently  he  returned. 

"I  would  not  advise  an  interview,"  he  said 
drily .  '  *  Your  brother — well ,  you  know  the  effects 
of  London  air  upon  an  undergraduate  fresh  from 
the  country !  Let  him  come  round  and  see  you  in 
the  morning." 

He  gave  the  cabman  his  orders,  and  their  equi- 
page drove  off,  just  as  Sebastian  Aloysius  Vereker, 
the  nucleus  of  a  gyrating  mass  of  humanity 
(composed  of  himself  and  party,  together  with 
two  stalwart  myrmidons  of  the  Hilarity  Restau- 
rant and  a  stray  cab-tout),  toppled  heavily  out 
of  the  portals  of  that  celebrated  house  of  refresh- 
ment into  the  arms  of  an  indulgent  policeman. 

More  life  —  real  life !  reflected  Daphne,  as  she 
laid  her  head  on  her  pillow,  tired  out  and  utterly 
contented.  To-day  had  yielded  its  full  share. 
That  peculiar  but  interesting  interview  with  Miss 


164  FLICKERINGS 

Tallentyre,  that  glorious  carnival  under  the  blue 
sky  at  Hurlingham,  and  that  laughter-and-tear- 
compelling  spectacle  at  the  Savoy  —  all  had 
contributed  to  the  total.  Finally  that  tete-a-tete 
supper  with  Jim  Carthew,  —  indubitably  a  dear, 
—  ending  with  the  episode  of  Ally.  A  little  dis- 
turbing, that  last!  Well,  perhaps  Ally  was  only 
trying  to  see  life,  too,  in  his  own  way.  Life! 
Daphne  tingled  as  she  felt  her  own  leap  in  her 
veins.  And  to-morrow  would  bring  more! 

Then  the  sandman  paid  his  visit,  and  she  slept 
like  the  tired  child  that  she  was,  having  completed 
to  her  entire  satisfaction  another  day  of  what, 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  was  nothing  more 
or  less  than  an  utterly  idle,  selfish,  unprofitable 
existence. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DIES   IRAE 


AT  Belton,  Daphne,  like  her  Scriptural  coun- 
terpart, came  to  herself.  Attired  in  what  she 
called  "rags,"  she  ran  wild  about  the  woods  and 
plantations,  accompanied  by  the  faithful  Mr. 
Dawks,  who  found  a  green  countryside  (even 
when  marred  at  intervals  by  a  grimy  pithead) 
infinitely  preferable  to  Piccadilly,  where  the  pave- 
ment is  hot  and  steerageway  precarious. 

They  were  to  stay  at  Belton  till  Christmas, 
after  which  the  house  in  Berkeley  Square  would 
be  ready  for  her.  Hitherto  she  had  been  well  con- 
tent with  the  little  establishment  in  Grosvenor 
Street;  but  her  ideas  in  certain  directions,  as  her 
husband  had  observed  to  Mrs.  Carfrae,  were  de- 
veloping in  a  very  gratifying  manner. 

One  hot  morning  Daphne  arrived  at  breakfast 
half  an  hour  late.  To  do  her  justice,  this  was  an 
unusual  fault;  for  in  the  country  she  would  never 
have  dreamed  of  indulging  in  such  an  urban  lux- 
ury as  breakfast  in  bed.  Her  unpunctuality  was 
not  due  to  sloth.  She  had  already  superintended 


166  FLICKERINGS 

the  morning  toilet  of  Master  Brian  Vereker  Carr, 
and  had  even  taken  a  constitutional  with  Mr. 
Dawks  along  the  road  which  ran  over  the  shoul- 
der of  a  green  hill  towards  Belton  Pit,  two  miles 
away.  She  knew  that  her  husband  had  gone  out 
at  seven  o'clock  to  interview  the  manager  at  the 
pithead,  and  she  had  reckoned  on  being  picked 
up  by  the  returning  automobile  and  brought 
home  in  time  for  nine  o'clock  breakfast.  Unfort- 
unately, Juggernaut  had  changed  his  plans  and 
gone  to  another  pit  in  the  opposite  direction,  with 
the  result  that  Daphne,  besides  being  compelled 
to  walk  twice  as  far  as  she  intended,  found  an  un- 
comfortable combination  of  cold  food  and  chilly 
husband  waiting  for  her  when  she  reached  home. 
Juggernaut  never  called  Daphne  to  book  for 
her  shortcomings  now.  It  had  become  his  cus- 
tom of  late,  if  he  found  anything  amiss  in  the 
management  of  the  establishment,  to  send  a  mes- 
sage to  the  housekeeper  direct.  He  should  have 
known  better.  Daphne,  regarding  such  a  pro- 
ceeding as  an  imputation  of  incompetence  on  her 
part,  boiled  inwardly  at  the  slight,  though  her 
innate  sense  of  justice  told  her  that  it  was  not 
altogether  undeserved.  Being  a  great  success  is 
apt  to  be  a  slightly  demoralizing  business,  and 
Daphne  herself  was  beginning  dimly  to  realise 
the  fact.  There  was  no  doubt,  for  instance,  that 
she  was  not  the  housekeeper  she  had  been.  But 


DIES  IRAE  167 

what  was  the  good?  There  had  been  some  credit 
in  feeding  the  boys  and  Dad  on  half  nothing,  and 
in  conjuring  that  second  weekly  joint  out  of  a 
housekeeping  surplus  that  was  a  little  financial 
triumph  in  itself.  But  now,  who  cared  if  a  leg  of 
mutton  were  saved  or  not?  What  did  it  matter  if 
the  cook  sold  the  leavings  and  the  butler  drank 
the  wine?  Her  husband  could  afford  it.  And  so  on. 

A  discussion  had  arisen  on  this  subject  the 
evening  before;  and  the  silent,  enigmatical  man 
whom  she  had  married,  whom  she  understood  so 
little,  and  who,  from  the  fact  that  he  treated  her 
as  something  between  an  incompetent  servant 
and  a  spoiled  child,  appeared  to  understand  her 
even  less,  had  spoken  out  more  frankly  than 
usual,  with  not  altogether  happy  results.  Daphne 
above  all  loved  openness  and  candour,  and  she 
could  not  endure  to  feel  that  her  husband  was 
exercising  forbearance  towards  her,  or  making 
allowances,  or  talking  down  to  her  level.  Conse- 
quently the  laborious  little  lecture  she  had  re- 
ceived, with  its  studied  moderation  of  tone  and  its 
obvious  desire  to  let  her  down  gently,  had  had  an 
unfortunate  but  not  altogether  unnatural  result. 
Juggernaut  would  have  done  better  to  employ  his 
big  guns,  such  as  he  reserved  for  refractory  pub- 
lic meetings.  As  it  was,  Daphne  lost  her  temper. 

"Jack,"  she  blazed  out  suddenly,  "I  know  I'm 
a  failure,  so  why  rub  it  in?  I  know  you  married 


168  FLICKERINGS 

me  to  keep  house  for  you;  so  you  have  a  perfect 
right  to  complain  if  I  do  it  badly.  Well,  you  have 
told  me;  now  I  know.  Shall  we  drop  the  subject? 
I  will  endeavour  to  be  more  competent,  honest, 
and  obliging  in  future." 

Juggernaut  rose  suddenly  from  the  table  — 
they  were  sitting  over  their  dessert  at  the  time  — 
and  walked  to  the  mantelpiece,  where  he  stood 
leaning  his  head  upon  his  arms,  in  an  apparent 
endeavour  to  mesmerise  the  fender.  Daphne, 
cooling  rapidly,  considered  what  he  was  thinking 
about.  Was  he  angry,  or  bored,  or  indifferent? 

Presently  he  turned  round. 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  handle  you  as  successfully 
as  I  handle  some  other  problems,  Daphne,"  he 
said  reflectively.  "  Good-night ! " 

That  was  all.  He  left  the  room,  and  Daphne 
had  not  seen  him  since.  Her  anger  was  gone.  By 
bedtime  she  was  thoroughly  ashamed  of  herself, 
and  being  Daphne,  no  other  course  lay  open  to 
her  than  that  of  saying  so.  Hence  her  early  rising 
next  morning,  and  her  effort  to  intercept  the 
motor. 

The  failure  of  the  latter  enterprise  made  mat- 
ters more  difficult;  for  courage,  once  screwed  to 
the  sticking-point  and  timed  for  a  certain  mo- 
ment, cannot  as  a  rule  outlast  postponement. 

Still,  she  walked  into  the  breakfast-room 
bravely. 


DIES  IRAE  169 

"Jack,"  she  began,  a  little  breathlessly,  "I'm 
sorry  I  was  cross  last  night." 

Her  husband  was  sitting  with  his  back  to  the 
door.  Possibly  if  he  had  seen  her  face,  —  flushed 
and  appealing  under  its  soft  hat  of  grey  suede,  — 
he  might  have  acted  a  little  more  helpfully  than 
he  did.  He  merely  laid  down  his  newspaper  and 
remarked  cheerfully:  — 

"That's  all  right,  dear.  Let's  say  no  more 
about  it.  Sit  down  to  your  breakfast  before  it 
gets  colder.  You  must  have  been  for  a  long  walk. 
—  Fried  sole  or  a  sausage?" 

He  rose  and  helped  her  to  food  from  the  side- 
board, as  promptly  and  carefully  as  if  she  had 
been  a  newly  arrived  and  important  guest.  It 
was  something;  but  compared  with  what  he 
might  have  done  it  was  nothing.  In  effect, 
Daphne  had  asked  for  a  kiss  and  been  given  a 
sausage. 

It  was  rather  a  miserable  breakfast.  Daphne 
had  vowed  to  herself  not  to  be  angry  again;  con- 
sequently she  could  only  mope.  Juggernaut  con- 
tinued to  read  the  newspaper.  The  political  world 
was  in  a  ferment  at  the  moment.  There  was  a 
promise  for  him  in  all  this  of  work  —  trouble  — 
the  facing  of  difficulties  —  the  overcoming  of 
strenuous  opposition  —  the  joy  of  battle,  in  fact. 
Manlike,  he  overlooked  the  trouble  that  was 
brewing  at  his  own  fireside. 


170  FLICKERINGS 

Presently  he  put  down  his  newspaper  and 
strolled  to  the  open  window. 

"What  a  gorgeous  day,  Daphne.  And  I  have 
to  spend  it  in  a  committee-room  at  Kilchester ! " 

"Anything  important?"  asked  Daphne,  deter- 
mined to  be  interested. 

"Important?  I  should  just  think  it  was,  only 
people  refuse  to  realise  the  fact.  It's  a  meeting 
of  the  County  Territorial  Association.  What 
humbug  the  whole  business  is !  They  started  the 
old  Volunteers,  coddled  them,  asked  nothing  of 
them  but  a  few  drills  and  an  annual  picnic  in 
camp,  and  then  laughed  them  out  of  existence  for 
Saturday-afternoon  soldiers.  Now  they  start  the 
Territorials  and  go  to  the  other  extreme.  They 
require  of  a  man  that  he  shall  attain,  free  gratis 
and  for  nothing,  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  few  scanty 
weeks  which  he  gets  by  way  of  holiday,  to  prac- 
tically the  same  standard  of  efficiency  as  a  regular 
soldier,  who  is  paid  for  it  and  gets  the  whole  year 
to  do  it  in.  And  then  they  blame  us,  the  County 
Associations,  because  we  can't  find  recruits  for 
them !  Luckily,  we  shall  have  compulsory  service 
soon,  and  that  will  end  the  farce  once  and  for  all." 

Daphne  liked  to  be  talked  to  like  this.  In  the 
first  place,  it  removed  the  uncomfortable  and 
humiliating  sensation  that  she  was  a  child  in  her 
husband's  eyes,  and  in  the  second,  it  adjusted  her 
sense  of  proportion  as  regards  the  male  sex.  Ob- 


DIES  IRAE  171 

viously,  with  all  these  dull  but  weighty  matters 
to  occupy  him,  a  man  could  not  be  expected  to 
set  as  much  store  by  conjugal  unity  as  his  wife, 
who  had  little  else  to  think  of. 

"Perhaps  I  have  been  a  little  fool,"  she  phi- 
losophised. "After  all,  a  man  does  n't  in  the  least 
realise  how  a  woman  —  " 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  to-day?  "  asked  her 
husband. 

"This  afternoon  I  am  going  over  to  Croxley 
Dene  to  play  tennis." 

"Anything  this  morning?" 

"I  am  going  to  order  the  automobile  for  twelve 
o'clock"  —  rather  reluctantly.  "I  suppose  Vick 
will  be  back  from  Kilchester." 

"Oh,  yes.  Are  you  going  out  to  lunch  some- 
where?" 

"N-no." 

"Just  a  drive?" 

"Yes.  The  fact  is,"  said  poor  Daphne,  hating 
herself  for  feeling  like  a  child  detected  in  a  fault, 
"I  am  going  to  try  my  hand  at  driving  the  car 
myself." 

There  was  a  pause,  and  Juggernaut  continued 
to  gaze  out  of  the  window,  while  Daphne  pleated 
the  tablecloth. 

Presently  the  hateful  expected  words  came. 

"I  would  rather  you  did  n't." 

Daphne  rose  suddenly  to  her  feet.   Her  face 


172  FLICKERINGS 

was  aflame,  and  all  her  good  resolutions  had  van- 
ished. She  had  always  longed  to  drive  the  big 
car,  her  appetite  having  been  whetted  by  occa- 
sional experiments  upon  the  property  —  usually 
small,  easily-handled  vehicles  —  of  long-suffering 
friends.  She  had  broached  the  subject  more  than 
once,  but  had  found  her  husband  curiously  vague 
as  regards  permission.  Usually  it  was  "Yes"  or 
"No"  with  him.  This  morning,  tired  of  the  hu- 
miliation of  constantly  asking  for  leave,  she  had 
decided  to  give  orders  on  her  own  account.  And 
but  for  Juggernaut's  unlucky  question  she  would 
have  achieved  her  purpose  and  settled  accounts 
afterwards  —  a  very  different  thing  from  asking 
leave  first,  as  every  child  knows. 

"And  why?"  she  asked,  with  suspicious  calm- 
ness. 

"Well,  for  one  thing  I  don't  think  a  lady  should 
be  seen  driving  a  great  covered-in  limousine  car. 
You  would  n't  go  out  on  the  box  seat  of  a 
brougham,  would  you?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  you 
will  have  patience  for  a  week  or  two  —  ' 

"  Yes,  I  know!"  broke  in  Daphne  passionately. 
"If  I  have  patience  for  a  week  or  two,  and  am  a 
good  little  girl,  and  order  the  meals  punctually  in 
the  mean  while,  you  will  perhaps  take  me  for  a 
run  one  afternoon,  and  let  me  hold  the  wheel 
while  you  sit  beside  me  with  the  second  speed  in. 
Thank  you !  Good-morning ! " 


DIES  IRAE  173 

She  pushed  back  her  chair,  whirled  round  with 
a  vehement  swirl  of  her  tweed  skirt,  and  left  the 
room. 

Juggernaut  continued  to  finger  a  typewritten 
letter  which  he  had  just  taken  from  his  pocket. 
It  bore  the  address  of  a  firm  of  motor-makers, 
and  said :  — 

SIR,  —  We  beg  to  inform  you  that  one  of  our 
Handy  Runabout  10-12  h-p  Cars,  for  which  we 
recently  received  your  esteemed  order,  is  now  in 
hand  from  the  varnishers',  and  will  be  delivered 
at  Belton  Hall  on  Tuesday  next.  As  requested, 
we  have  given  the  clutch-pedal  and  brake  a  par- 
ticularly easy  spring,  with  a  view  to  the  car  being 
driven  by  a  lady. 

Thanking  you  for  past  favours,  we  are,  sir, 7 

Yours  faithfully, 
THE  DIABLEMENT-ODORANT  AUTOMOBILE  Co.,  LTD. 

Juggernaut  put  the  letter  back  into  his  pocket. 

ii 

In  due  course  the  Belton  motor  conveyed  its 
owner  to  Kilchester  and  left  him  there. 

"  Shall  I  come  back  for  you,  sir?  "  enquired  Mr. 
Vick,  the  chauffeur.  He  was  a  kindly  man,  de- 
spite his  exalted  station. 

"No,  thanks  —  I'll  take  the  train.   But  I  be- 


174  FLICKERINGS 

lieve  Lady  Carr  wants  you  to  take  her  over  to 
Croxley  Dene  this  afternoon." 

"Her  ladyship  shall  be  took,"  said  Mr.  Vick, 
with  an  indulgent  smile,  —  Lady  Carr  was  a 
favourite  of  his,  —  and  forthwith  returned  to 
Belton. 

On  running  the  car  into  the  yard,  he  found  the 
coachman,  Mr.  Windebank,  a  sadly  diminished 
luminary  in  these  days,  putting  a  polish  upon  an 
unappreciative  quadruped. 

"  You  and  your  machine,  Mr.  Vick,"  announced 
Mr.  Windebank,  "is  wanted  round  at  twelve 
sharp." 

It  was  then  eleven-fifteen. 
."Ho!"  replied  the  ruffled  Mr.  Vick,  feeling 
much  as  the  Emperor  Nero  might  have  felt  on 
being  requested  by  the  most  recently  immured 
early  Christian  to  see  that  the  arena  lions  were 
kept  a  bit  quieter  to-morrow  night;  " ho !  indeed ! " 

"Them's  your  orders,  Mr.  Vick,"  said  Mr. 
Windebank,  resuming  the  peculiar  dental  obbligato 
which  seems  to  be  the  inseparable  accompaniment 
of  the  toilet  of  a  horse,  temporarily  suspended  on 
this  occasion  to  enable  the  performer  to  discharge 
his  little  broadside. 

Mr.  Vick  turned  off  various  taps  and  switches 
on  his  dashboard,  and  the  humming  of  the  engine 
ceased. 

"I  take  my  orders,"  he  proclaimed  in  majestic 


DIES  IRAE  175 

tones,  "from  the  master  and  missis  direct,  and 
from  nobody  else." 

Mr.  Windebank,  after  spending  some  moments 
in  groping  for  a  crushing  rejoinder,  replied :  — 

"Well,  you'd  better  go  inside  and  get  'em. 
And  you  'd  better  'ang  a  nosebag  on  your  spark- 
ing-plug in  the  mean  while,"  he  added,  with  sud- 
den and  savage  irrelevance. 

Mr.  Vick  adopted  the  former  of  these  two  sug- 
gestions, with  the  result  that  at  the  hour  of  noon 
the  car  slid  submissively  round  to  the  front  of  the 
Hall.  Presently  Daphne  appeared,  and,  disre- 
garding the  door  which  Mr.  Vick  was  holding 
open  for  her,  stepped  up  into  the  driver's  seat  — 
the  throne  itself  —  and  took  the  wheel  in  her 
vigorous  little  hands. 

"I  am  going  to  drive,  Vick,"  she  observed 
cheerfully. 

Mr.  Vick  preserved  his  self-control  and  smiled 
faintly. 

"I  suppose  you  have  a  license,  my  lady?"  he 
enquired. 

"Gracious,  no!  I  am  only  just  beginning," 
replied  Daphne,  who  regarded  a  driver's  license 
as  a  sort  of  reward  of  merit.  "I  want  you  to 
teach  me.  Which  of  these  things  is  the  clutch- 
pedal?" 

"The  left,  my  lady.  I  am  afraid,"  added  Mr. 
Vick,  with  the  air  of  one  who  intends  to  stop  this 


176  FLICKERINGS 

nonsense  once  and  for  all,  "that  you  will  find  it 
very  stiff." 

"Thanks,"  said  Daphne  blankly.  "And  I  sup- 
pose the  other  one  is  the  brake?" 

"Yes,  my  lady;  but—  " 

"  Then  we  can  start.  How  do  I  put  in  the  first 
speed?" 

Mr.  Vick,  in  what  can  only  be  described  as  a 
moriturusJe-saluto!  voice,  gave  the  required  in- 
formation; and  the  car,  after  a  dislocating  jerk, 
moved  off  at  a  stately  four  miles  per  hour.  Pres- 
ently, with  much  slipping  of  the  clutch  and  buzz- 
ing of  the  gear-wheels,  the  second,  and  finally  the 
third  speed  went  in,  and  the  car  proceeded  with 
all  the  exuberance  of  its  forty-five  horse-power 
down  the  long  straight  drive.  Fortunately  the 
lodge  gates  stood  open,  and  the  road  outside  was 
clear. 

Certainly  Mr.  Vick  behaved  very  well.  Al- 
though every  wrench  and  jar  to  which  his  beloved 
engines  were  subjected  appeared  to  react  di- 
rectly upon  his  own  internal  mechanism,  he  never 
winced.  Occasionally  a  muffled  groan  or  a  mut- 
tered exclamation  of  "My  tires!"  or  "My  differ- 
ential!" burst  from  his  overwrought  lips;  but  for 
the  most  part  he  sat  like  a  graven  image,  merely 
hoping  that  when  the  crash  came,  it  would  be  a 
good  one  —  something  about  which  it  would  be 
really  grateful  and  comfortable  to  say,  "I  told 


DIES  IRAE  177 

you  so!"  He  also  cherished  a  strong  hope  that 
his  name  would  appear  in  the  newspaper  account 
of  the  disaster. 

But  Daphne  drove  well.  She  had  a  good  head 
and  quick  hands;  and  steering  a  middle  course 
between  the  extreme  caution  of  the  beginner  and 
the  omniscient  recklessness  of  the  half -educated, 
she  gave  Mr.  Vick  very  little  excuse  for  anything 
in  the  shape  of  a  genuine  shudder.  She  experi- 
enced a  little  difficulty  in  getting  the  clutch  right 
out  of  acting  in  changing  gear;  and  once  she 
stopped  her  engine  through  going  round  a  corner 
with  the  brakes  on;  but  that  was  all.  Mr.  Vick 
began  to  feel  distinctly  aggrieved. 

There  was  a  spice  of  abandon  in  Daphne's 
present  attitude.  She  had  burned  her  boats;  she 
had  flown  in  the  face  of  authority  and  she  intended 
to  brazen  it  out.  The  breeze  whistled  in  her  ears; 
her  eyes  blazed;  her  cheeks  glowed.  She  felt  in 
good  fighting  trim. 

Presently,  fetching  a  compass,  the  car  began  to 
head  towards  Belton  again,  and  having  been 
directed  in  masterly  fashion  through  the  narrow 
gates  by  the  back  lodge,  sped  along  the  final 
stretch  which  led  to  home  and  luncheon,  at  a 
comfortable  thirty  miles  an  hour. 

At  the  end  of  the  dappled  vista  formed  by  the 
over-arching  trees  of  the  avenue  appeared  a  black 
object,  which  presently  resolved  itself  into  Mr. 


178  FLICKERINGS 

Dawks,  lolling  comfortably  in  a  patch  of  sunlight 
pending  his  mistress's  return. 

"  Mind  the  dog,  my  lady ! "  cried  Mr.  Vick  sud- 
denly. 

Daphne  had  every  intention  of  minding  the  dog ; 
but  desire  and  performance  do  not  always  coin- 
cide. Suddenly  realising  that  Mr.  Dawks,  who 
was  now  sitting  up  expectantly  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance, wagging  his  tail  and  extending  a  welcome 
as  misplaced  as  that  of  Jephtha's  daughter  under 
somewhat  similar  circumstances,  had  no  concep- 
tion of  the  necessity  for  vacating  his  present  po- 
sition, Daphne  put  down  both  feet  hard  and  en- 
deavoured to  bring  the  car  to  a  standstill.  But 
thirty  miles  an  hour  is  forty -four  feet  a  second, 
and  the  momentum  of  a  car  weighing  two  tons  is 
not  lightly  to  be  arrested  by  a  brake  intended  for 
the  pressure  of  a  masculine  boot.  Next  moment 
there  was  a  pathetic  little  yelp.  Daphne  had  a 
brief  vision  of  an  incredulous  and  reproachful 
doggy  countenance;  the  car  gave  a  slight  lurch, 
and  then  came  to  a  full  stop,  as  Mr.  Vick,  having 
already  snapped  off  the  electric  switch  on  the 
dashboard,  reached  across  behind  Daphne's  back 
and  jammed  on  the  side  brake. 

in 

It  was  Mr.  Dawks  who  really  showed  to  the 
greatest  advantage  during  the  next  half-hour. 


DIES  IRAE  179 

He  assured  his  mistress  by  every  means  in  his 
power  that  the  whole  thing  was  entirely  his  fault; 
and  like  the  courteous  gentleman  that  he  was,  he 
begged  her  with  faintly  wagging  tail  and  affection- 
ate eyes  not  to  distress  herself  unduly  on  his 
account.  The  thing  was  done;  let  there  be  no 
more  talk  about  it.  It  was  nothing!  By  way  of 
showing  that  the  cordiality  of  their  relations  was 
still  unimpaired,  he  endeavoured  to  shake  hands, 
first  with  one  paw  and  then  the  other;  but  finding 
that  both  were  broken  he  reluctantly  desisted 
from  his  efforts. 

They  carried  him  —  what  was  left  of  him  — 
into  the  house,  where  Daphne,  white-faced  and 
tearless,  hung  in  an  agony  of  self-reproach  over 
the  friend  of  her  youth  —  the  last  link  with  her 
girlhood.  Dawks  lay  very  still.  Once,  opening 
his  eyes  and  evidently  feeling  that  something  was 
expected  of  him,  he  licked  her  hand.  The  tears 
came  fast,  after  that. 

Presently  Windebank  arrived.  He  loved  all 
dumb  beasts,  and  was  skilled  in  ministering  to 
their  ailments,  —  wherein  he  transcended  that 
highly-educated  automaton,  Mr.  Vick,  to  whom 
the  acme  of  life  was  represented  by  a  set  of  per- 
fectly-timed sparking-plugs,  —  and  he  made 
poor  mangled  Dawks  as  comfortable  as  possible. 

"Is  he  badly  hurt,  Windebank?"  whispered 
Daphne. 


180  FLICKERINGS 

"Yes,  Miss,"  said  Windebank,  touching  his 
forelock.  He  was  a  man  of  few  words  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  superiors. 

"Will  he  die?" 

Windebank  gazed  down  in  an  embarrassed 
fashion  at  the  close  coils  of  fair  hair,  bowed  over 
the  dog's  rough  coat.  Then  he  stiffened  himself 
defiantly. 

"He'll  get  well  right  enough,  Miss,"  he  said 
with  great  assurance.  "Just  wants  taking  care 
of,  that's  all." 

It  was  a  lie,  and  he  knew  it.  But  it  was  a  kind 
lie.  To  such  much  is  forgiven. 

Daphne  sat  with  her  patient  until  three  o'clock, 
and  then,  overcome  with  the  restlessness  of  im- 
potent anxiety,  and  stimulated  by  an  urgent 
telephonic  reminder,  ordered  out  the  horse. 

"Good-bye,  old  man,"  she  said  to  Dawks, 
caressing  the  dog's  long  ears  and  unbecoming 
nose.  "  I  '11  be  back  in  an  hour  or  two.  Lie  quiet, 
and  you'll  soon  be  all  right.  Windebank  says  so." 

Mr.  Dawks  whined  gently  and  flapped  his  tail 
upon  the  floor,  further  intimating  by  a  faint  tremor 
of  his  ungainly  body  that  if  circumstances  had 
permitted  he  would  certainly  have  made  a  point 
of  rising  and  accompanying  his  mistress  to  the 
door,  and  seeing  her  off  the  premises.  As  things 
were,  he  must  beg  to  be  excused. 

Daphne  drove  to  Croxley  Dene,  where  for  an 


DIES  IRAE  181 

hour  or  so  she  exchanged  banalities  with  the  rest 
of  the  county  and  played  a  set  of  tennis. 

She  drove  home  in  the  cool  of  the  evening, 
more  composed  in  mind.  The  fresh  air  and  exer- 
cise had  done  her  good.  Windebank  had  said  that 
the  dog  would  live;  that  was  everything.  Less 
satisfactory  to  contemplate  was  the  approaching 
interview  with  her  husband  in  the  matter  of  the 
car.  Until  now  she  had  not  thought  of  it. 

On  reaching  home  she  hurried  to  the  library, 
where  she  had  left  the  invalid  lying  on  a  rug  before 
the  fire.  Mr.  Dawks  was  not  there. 

"I  wonder  if  Windebank  has  taken  him  to  the 
stable,"  she  said  to  herself.  "I'll  go  and  —  " 

She  turned,  and  found  herself  face  to  face  with 
her  husband. 

"Jack,"  she  asked  nervously,  "do  you  know 
where  Dawks  is?  I  suppose  you  have  heard  —  " 

"Yes,  I  have  heard." 

Daphne  shrank  back  at  the  sound  of  his  voice. 
His  face  was  like  flint. 

"Then —  where  is  he?"  she  faltered.  "Win- 
debank said  —  " 

"I  had  him  shot." 

Daphne  stared  at  him  incredulously.  "You 
had  him  shot /"  she  said  slowly.  "My  Dawks?" 

"Yes.  It  was  rank  cruelty  on  your  part  keep- 
ing the  poor  brute  alive,  after  —  after  reducing 
him  to  that  state." 


182  FLICKERINGS 

The  last  half -sentence  may  have  been  natural 
and  justifiable,  but  no  one  could  call  it  generous. 
It  is  not  easy  to  be  merciful  when  one  is  at  white 
heat. 

Daphne  stood  up,  very  slim  and  straight,  gaz- 
ing stonily  into  her  husband's  face. 

"Have  you  buried  him?" 

"I  told  one  of  the  gardeners  to  do  so." 

"Where?" 

"I  don't  know,  but  we  can  —  ' 

"I  suppose  you  know,"  said  Daphne  with  great 
deliberation,  "that  he  was  the  only  living  creat- 
ure in  all  this  great  house  that  loved  me  —  really 
loved  me?" 

Verily,  here  was  war.  There  was  a  tense  silence 
for  a  moment,  and  an  almost  imperceptible  flicker 
of  some  emotion  passed  over  Juggernaut's  face. 
Then  he  said,  with  equal  deliberation:  — 

"Without  any  exception?" 

"Yes,  without  any  exception!"  cried  Daphne, 
stabbing  passionately  in  the  dark.  "And  since  he 
is  dead,"  she  added,  —  "since  you  have  killed 
him,  —  I  am  going  home  to  Dad  and  the  boys ! 
They  love  me!" 

She  stood  before  her  husband  with  her  head 
thrown  back  defiantly,  white  and  trembling  with 
passion. 

"Very  good.  Perhaps  that  would  be  best," 
said  Juggernaut  quietly. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CILLY;  OB  THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST 


« 

M 


STIFFY,"  bellowed  the  new  curate  ferociously, 
what  the  —  I  mean,  why  on  earth  can't  you 
keep  that  right  foot  steady?  You  edge  off  to  leg 
every  time.  If  you  get  a  straight  ball,  stand  up  to 
it!  If  you  get  a  leg-ball,  turn  round  and  have  a 
slap  at  it!  But  for  heaven's  sake,  don't  go  run- 
ning away!  Especially  from  things  like  pats  of 
butter!" 

"Awfully  sorry,  Mr.  Blunt!"  gasped  Stiffy 
abjectly,  as  another  pat  of  butter  sang  past  his 
ear.  "  It 's  the  rotten  way  I  've  been  brought  up ! 
I've  never  had  any  decent  coaching  before. 
Ough!  .  .  .  No,  it  didn't  hurt  a  bit,  really!  I 
shall  be  all  right  in  a  minute."  He  hopped  round 
in  a  constricted  circle,  apologetically  caressing 
his  stomach. 

They  were  in  the  paddock  behind  the  Rectory 
orchard.  The  Reverend  Godfrey  Blunt,  a  ruddy 
young  man  of  cheerful  countenance  and  ingenu- 
ous disposition,  had  rolled  out  an  extremely  fiery 
wicket;  and  within  the  encompassing  net  — 
Daphne's  last  birthday  present  —  Stephen  Bla- 
sius  Vereker,  impaled  frog-wise  upon  the  handle 


184  FLICKERINGS 

of  his  bat,  and  divided  between  a  blind  instinct 
of  self-preservation  and  a  desire  not  to  appear 
ungrateful  for  favours  received,  was  frantically 
endeavouring  to  dodge  the  deliveries  of  the 
church  militant,  as  they  bumped  past  his  head 
and  ricocheted  off  his  ribs. 

"That's  better,"  said  Mr.  Blunt,  as  his  pupil 
succeeded  for  the  first  time  in  arresting  the  course 
of  a  fast  long-hop  with  his  bat  instead  of  his  per- 
son. "But  don't  play  back  to  yorkers!" 

"All  right!"  said  Stiffy  dutifully.  "I  didn't 
know,"  he  added  in  all  sincerity,  "that  it  was  a 
yorker,  or  I  would  n't  have  done  it.  Oh,  I  say, 
well  bowled!  I  don't  think  anybody  could  have 
stopped  that  one.  It  never  touched  the  ground 
at  all!" 

Stiffy  turned  round,  and  surveyed  his  prostrate 
wickets  admiringly.  He  was  an  encouraging  per- 
son to  bowl  to. 

"No,  it  was  a  pretty  hot  one,"  admitted  the 
curate  modestly.  "  I  think  I  shall  have  to  be  going 
now,"  he  added,  mopping  his  brow.  "Parish 
work,  and  a  sermon  to  write,  worse  luck !  I  think 
I  have  just  time  for  a  short  knock,  though.  Bowl 
away,  Stiffy!" 

He  took  his  stand  at  the  wicket,  and,  after 
three  blind  and  characteristic  swipes,  succeeded 
in  lifting  a  half- volley  of  Stiffy's  into  the  adjacent 
orchard.  When  the  bowler,  deeply  gratified  with 


THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST        185 

a  performance  of  which  he  felt  himself  to  be  an 
unworthy  but  necessary  adjunct,  returned  ten 
minutes  later  from  a  successful  search  for  the 
ball,  he  found  his  hero  hastily  donning  the  old 
tweed  jacket  and  speckled  straw  hat  which  he 
kept  for  wear  with  his  cricket  flannels. 

"Hallo!  Off?"  cried  Stiffy  regretfully. 

"Yes;  I'm  afraid  so,"  replied  Mr.  Blunt,  who 
was  gazing  anxiously  through  a  gap  in  the  hedge 
which  commanded  the  Rectory  garden  gate. 
"This  is  my  busy  day.  So  long,  old  man!" 

He  vaulted  the  fence,  and  set  off  down  the  road 
at  a  vigorous  and  businesslike  trot.  But  after  a 
hundred  yards  or  so  he  halted,  and  looked  round 
him  with  an  air  which  can  only  be  described  as 
furtive.  Before  him  the  road,  white  and  dusty, 
continued  officiously  on  its  way  to  the  village  and 
duty.  Along  the  right-hand  side  thereof  ran  a 
neat  rail  fence,  skirting  the  confines  of  Tinkler's 
Den.  The  landscape  appeared  deserted.  All  na- 
ture drowsed  in  the  hot  afternoon  sun. 

Mr.  Blunt,  who  was  a  muscular  young  Chris- 
tian, took  a  running  jump  of  some  four  feet  six, 
cleared  the  topmost  rail,  and  landed  neatly  on 
the  grassy  slope  which  ran  down  towards  the 
Den. 

"Now  then,  Sunny  Jim!"  remarked  a  reprov- 
ing voice  above  his  head,  "pas  si  beaucoup  de 
cela!" 


186  FLICKERINGS 

However  sound  our  nervous  systems  may  be, 
we  are  all  of  us  liable  to  be  startled  at  times.  Mr. 
Blunt  was  undoubtedly  startled  on  this  occasion, 
and  being  young  and  only  very  recently  ordained, 
signified  the  same  in  the  usual  manner. 

When  he  looked  up  into  the  tree  where  Nicky 
was  reclining,  that  virtuous  damsel's  fingers  were 
in  her  ears. 

"Mr.  Blunt,"  she  remarked,  "I  am  both  sur- 
prised and  shocked." 

"Veronica  Vereker,"  replied  Mr.  Blunt,  turn- 
ing and  shaking  his  fist  as  he  retreated  down  the 
slope  towards  Tinkler's  Den,  "next  time  I  get 
hold  of  you,  I  will  wring  your  little  neck!" 

Miss  Veronica  Vereker  kissed  the  tips  of  her 
fingers  to  him. 

"  We  will  now  join,"  she  proclaimed,  in  a  voice 
surprisingly  reminiscent  of  the  throaty  tenor 
which  Mr.  Blunt  reserved  for  his  ecclesiastical 
performances,  "in  singing  hymn  number  two 
hundred  and  thirty-three;  during  which  those 
who  desire  to  leave  the  church  are  recommended 
to  do  so,  as  it  is  my  —  turn  —  to  —  preach  —  the 
—  sermon!" 

But  by  this  time,  the  foe,  running  rapidly,  was 
out  of  earshot. 

Half  an  hour  later  Stiffy,  who  was  a  gregarious 
animal,  went  in  search  of  his  younger  sister, 
whom  he  discovered,  recently  returned  from  her 


THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST        187 

sylvan  skirmish  with  the  curate,  laboriously 
climbing  into  a  hammock  in  the  orchard. 

"Nicky,  will  you  come  and  play  cricket?"  he 
asked  politely. 

"I  suppose  that  means  will  I  come  and  bowl 
to  you?"  replied  Nicky. 

"  No.  You  can  bat  if  you  like." 

"  Well,  I  won't  do  either,"  said  Nicky  agreeably. 

"What  shall  we  do,  then?"  pursued  Stiffy, 
with  unimpaired  bonhomie. 

"Personally,  I  am  going  to  remain  in  this  ham- 
mock," replied  the  lady.  "I  recommend  you, 
dear,  to  go  put  your  head  in  a  bucket.  Good- 
afternoon!  Sorry  you  can't  stop." 

"I  wonder  if  Cilly  would  play,"  mused  Stiffy. 

" Cilly?  I  don't  think!  She  is  gloating  over  her 
clothes  in  her  bedroom.  If  you  and  I,  my  lad," 
continued  Veronica  reflectively,  "were  going  to 
be  presented  at  Court  next  week,  I  wonder  if  we 
should  make  such  unholy  shows  of  ourselves  for 
days  beforehand." 

"I  know  her  boxes  are  all  packed,"  pursued 
Stiffy  hopefully,  "  because  I  went  and  sat  on  the 
lids  myself  after  lunch.  Perhaps  she  will  come  out 
for  half  an  hour  before  tea.  Dad  and  Tony  won't 
be  back  from  Tilney  till  seven,  so  they  are  no 
good." 

"Well,  run  along, little  man,"  said  Nicky,  clos- 
ing her  eyes.  "I'm  fed  up  with  you." 


188  FLICKERINGS 

Stiffy  departed  obediently,  and  for  ten  minutes 
his  younger  sister  reclined  in  her  hammock,  her 
sinful  little  soul  purged  for  the  moment  of  evil 
intent  against  any  man.  When  next  she  opened 
her  eyes,  Stiffy  was  standing  disconsolately  before 
her. 

"Go  away/*  said  Nicky  faintly.  "We  have  no 
empty  bottles  or  rabbit-skins  at  present.  If  you 
call  round  about  Monday  we  shall  be  emptying 
the  dustbin  —  " 

"Cilly's  not  there,"  said  Stiffy.  "Keziah 
thinks  she  has  gone  out  for  a  walk.  She  saw  her 
strolling  down  towards  the  Den  hah*  an  hour 
ago." 

"The  Den?19  Nicky's  eyes  suddenly  unclosed 
to  their  full  radius.  "Myche— ild!  So  that's  the 
game !  That  was  why  the  pale  young  curate  was 
jumping  fences.  Ha-^a/  Stiffy,  would  you  like 
some  fun?" 

Stiffy,  mystified  but  docile,  assented. 

"We  are  going,"  announced  Nicky,  rolling 
gracefully  out  of  the  hammock,  "  to  stalk  a  brace 
of  true  lovers." 

"What  — Mr.  Blunt  and  Cilly?  Do  you 
mean  —  ?  Are  they  really  keen  on  each  other?" 
enquired  the  unobservant  male  amazedly. 

"Are  they?  My  dear,  it  has  been  written  all 
over  them  for  weeks!  I'm  not  certain,  though," 
continued  the  experienced  Nicky,  "that  the  poor 


THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST        189 

dears  are  aware  of  it  themselves  yet.  But  to-day 
is  Cilly's  last  for  months,  so  —  ' 

"Do  you  mean  they  were  down  the  Den  to- 
gether?" demanded  Stiffy. 

"I  do." 

"But  —  Mr.  Blunt  has  gone  off  to  do  parish 
work.  He  told  me  so  himself." 

"Parish  work,  my  foot!"  commented  Nicky 
simply.  "Come  on!  Let's  go  and  mark  down 
their  trail !  We  can  pretend  to  be  Red  Indians,  if 
you  like,"  she  added  speciously. 

But  the  sportsmanlike  Stiffy  hung  back. 

"Let's  play  cricket  instead,"  he  said  hesitat- 
ingly. 

"Not  me!  Come  on!" 

"Nicky,"  said  Stiffy,  searching  his  hand,  so  to 
speak,  for  trumps,  "  Preston  is  killing  a  pig  this 
afternoon  at  four  o'clock.  I  've  just  remembered. 
He  promised  not  to  begin  till  I  came.  We  shall 
just  be  in  time.  Hurry  up ! " 

"I  am  going,"  said  Nicky  firmly,  "to  stalk  that 
couple.  Are  you  coming?" 

"No.  It's  not  playing  the  game,"  said  Stiffy 
bravely. 

Nicky,  uneasily  conscious  that  he  spoke  the 
truth,  smiled  witheringly. 

"All  right,  milksop!"  she  said.  "I  shall  go  by 
myself.  You  can  go  and  hold  the  pig's  head." 

So  they  departed  on  their  several  errands. 


190  FLICKERINGS 

Meanwhile  Cilly  and  the  curate  sat  side  by  side 
beneath  a  gnarled  and  venerable  oak  in  Tinkler's 
Den. 

"...  Then  your  name  is  called  out,"  con- 
tinued Cilly  raptly,  "and  you  give  one  last  squig- 
gle  to  your  train  and  go  forward  and  curtsy,  —  to 
all  the  Royalties  in  turn,  I  think,  but  I  'm  not  quite 
sure  about  that  part  yet,  —  and  then  you  pass 
along  out  of  the  way,  and  somebody  picks  up 
your  train  and  throws  it  over  your  shoulder,  and 
you  find  yourself  in  another  room,  and  it's  all 
over.  Won't  it  be  heavenly?  " 

"Splendid!"  replied  Mr.  Blunt,  without  en- 
thusiasm. 

"After  that,"  continued  Cilly,  "my  sister  is 
going  to  take  me  simply  everywhere.  And  I  am  to 
meet  lots  of  nice  people.  It 's  too  late  for  Henley 
and  Ascot  and  that  sort  of  thing  this  summer, 
but  I  am  to  have  them  all  next  year.  Later  on,  we 
are  going  to  Scotland.  I  'm  not  at  all  a  lucky  girl, 
am  I?" 

It  was  one  of  those  questions  to  which,  despite 
its  form,  an  experienced  Latin  grammarian  would 
have  unhesitatingly  prefixed  the  particle  nonne. 
But  the  Reverend  Godfrey  Blunt  merely  replied 
in  a  hollow  voice:  "What  price  me?" 

Cilly,  startled,  turned  and  regarded  his  hot  but 
honest  face,  and  then  lowered  her  gaze  hastily  to 
the  region  of  her  own  toes. 


THE  WORLD  WELL   LOST        191 

The  Reverend  Godfrey  Blunt  was  a  fine  upstand- 
ing young  man,  with  merry  grey  eyes;  and  there 
was  a  cheerful  and  boisterous  bonhomie  about  his 
conversation  which  the  exigencies  of  his  calling 
had  not  yet  intoned  out  of  him.  No  one  had  ever 
called  him  brilliant,  for  his  strength  lay  in  char- 
acter rather  than  intellect.  He  was  a  perfect 
specimen  of  that  unromantic  but  priceless  type 
with  which  British  public  schools  and  universities 
never  fail  to  meet  the  insatiable  demands  of  a 
voracious  Empire.  The  assistant  commissioner, 
the  company  officer,  the  junior-form  master,  the 
slum  curate  —  these  are  they  that  propel  the 
ships  of  state.  Up  above  upon  the  quarter-deck, 
looking  portentously  wise  and  occasionally  quar- 
relling for  the  possession  of  the  helm,  you  may 
behold  their  superiors  —  the  Cabinet  Minister, 
the  Prelate,  the  Generalissimo.  But  our  friends 
remain  below  the  water-line,  —  unheeded,  un- 
credited,  —  and  see  to  it  that  the  wheels  go  round. 
They  expect  no  thanks,  and  they  are  not  disap- 
pointed. The  ship  goes  forward,  and  that  is  all 
they  care  about. 

The  Reverend  Godfrey  Blunt  was  one  of  this 
nameless  host.  At  school  he  had  scraped  into  the 
Sixth  by  a  hair's  breadth ;  at  the  University  he  had 
secured  a  degree  of  purely  nominal  value.  He  had 
been  an  unheroic  member  of  his  House  Eleven; 
thereafter  he  had  excoriated  his  person  uncom- 


192  FLICKERINGS 

plainingly  and  unsuccessfully  upon  a  fixed  seat 
for  the  space  of  three  years,  not  because  he  ex- 
pected to  make  bumps  or  obtain  his  Blue,  but  be- 
cause his  College  second  crew  had  need  of  him. 
Since  then  he  had  worked  for  five  years  in  a  parish 
in  Bennondsey,  at  a  stipend  of  one  hundred 
pounds  a  year;  and  only  the  doctor's  ultimatum 
had  prevailed  on  him  to  try  country  work  for  a 
change.  His  spelling  was  shaky,  his  theology 
would  have  made  Pusey  turn  in  his  grave,  and 
his  sermons  would  have  bored  his  own  mother. 
But  he  was  a  man. 

Cilly,  whom  we  left  bashfully  contemplating 
her  shoe-buckles  under  an  oak  tree,  was  conscious 
of  a  new,  sudden,  and  disturbing  thrill.  Young 
girls  are  said  seldom  to  reflect  and  never  to  rea- 
son. They  have  no  need.  They  have  methods  of 
their  own  of  arriving  at  the  root  of  the  matter.  Cilly 
realised  in  a  flash  that  if  a  proper  man  was  the 
object  of  her  proposed  journey  through  the  great 
and  enticing  world  before  her,  she  need  never  set 
out  at  all.  Something  answering  to  that  descrip- 
tion was  sitting  beside  her,  sighing  like  a  furnace. 
Her  face  flamed. 

"What  did  you  say?"  she  enquired  unsteadily. 

"  I  said '  What  price  me  ? ' "  reiterated  the  curate 
mournfully. 

"WTiat  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean"  —  he  spoke  hesitatingly,  like  a  man 


THE  WORLD  WELL  LOST       193 

picking  his  words  from  an  overwhelming  crowd 
of  applicants  —  "well,  I  mean  this.  You  and  I 
have  seen  a  lot  of  each  other  since  I  came  here. 
You  have  been  awfully  good  to  me,  and  I  have 
got  into  the  way  of  bringing  you  my  little  trou- 
bles, and  turning  to  you  generally  if  I  felt  dismal 
or  humpy.  (There  are  more  joyful  spots,  you 
know,  to  spend  one's  leisure  hours  in  than  Mrs. 
Tice's  First  Floor  Front!)  And  now  —  now  you 
are  going  away  from  me,  to  meet  all  sorts  of  at- 
tractive people  and  have  the  time  of  your  life. 
You  will  have  a  fearful  lot  of  attention  paid  to 
you.  Nine  out  of  ten  men  you  meet  will  fall  in 
love  with  you  —  " 

"Oh,  nonsense!"  said  Cilly  feebly. 

"But  I  know  it,"  persisted  Blunt.  "I  simply 
can't  conceive  any  man  being  able  to  do  anything 
else.  Do  you  know"  —  the  words  stuck  in  his 
throat  for  a  moment  and  then  came  with  a  rush 
—  "do  you  know  that  you  are  the  most  adorable 
girl  on  God's  earth?  I  love  you!  I  love  you! 
There  —  I've  said  it!  I  had  meant  to  say  a  lot 
more  first,  —  work  up  to  it  by  degrees,  you 
know,  —  but  it  has  carried  me  away  of  its  own 
accord.  I  love  you  —  dear,  dear  Cilly!" 

There  was  a  long  stillness.  All  nature  seemed 
to  be  watching  with  bated  breath  for  the  next 
step.  Only  above  their  heads  the  branches  of  the 
oak  tree  crackled  gently.  Cilly's  head  swam. 


194  FLICKERINGS 

Something  new  and  tremulous  was  stirring  within 
her.  She  closed  her  eyes,  lest  the  spell  should  be 
broken  by  the  sight  of  some  mundane  external 
object.  A  purely  hypothetical  fairy  prince,  com- 
posed of  equal  parts  of  Peer  of  the  Realm,  Life 
Guardsman,  Mr.  Sandow,  Lord  Byron,  and  the 
Bishop  of  London,  whom  she  had  cherished  in  the 
inmost  sanctuary  of  her  heart  ever  since  she  had 
reached  the  age  at  which  a  girl  begins  to  dream 
about  young  men,  suddenly  rocked  upon  his  ped- 
estal. Then  she  opened  her  eyes  again,  and  con- 
templated the  homely  features  of  the  Reverend 
Godfrey  Blunt. 

Not  that  they  appeared  homely  any  longer. 
Never  had  a  man's  face  undergone  such  a  trans- 
formation in  so  short  a  time.  To  her  shy  eyes  he 
had  grown  positively  handsome.  Cilly  felt  her 
whole  being  suddenly  drawn  towards  this  goodly 
youth.  The  composite  paragon  enshrined  in  her 
heart  gave  a  final  lurch  and  then  fell  headlong,  to 
lie  dismembered  and  disregarded,  Dagon-like,  at 
the  foot  of  his  own  pedestal. 

.  .  .  Slowly  their  hands  met,  and  they  gazed 
upon  one  another  long  and  rapturously.  How 
long,  they  did  not  know.  There  was  no  need  to 
take  count  of  time.  They  seemed  to  be  sitting  to- 
gether all  alone  on  the  edge  of  the  universe,  with 
eternity  before  them.  The  next  step  was  obvious 
enough;  they  both  realised  what  it  must  be:  but 


THE  WORLD  WELL   LOST       195 

they  did  not  hurry.  They  sat  on,  this  happy  pair, 
waiting  for  inspiration. 

It  came  —  straight  from  above  their  heads. 

"  Kiss  her,  you  fool ! "  commanded  a  hoarse  and 
frenzied  voice  far  up  the  tree. 

Crackle!  Crash!  Bump! 

And  Nicky,  overestimating  in  her  enthusiasm 
the  supporting  power  of  an  outlying  branch, 
tumbled,  headlong  but  undamaged,  a  medley  of 
arms  and  legs  and  blue  pinafore,  right  at  their 
very  feet. 

A  few  hours  later,  Daphne,  preceded  by  a  rather 
incoherent  telegram,  drove  up  to  the  Rectory  in 
the  station  fly. 

She  was  met  at  the  door  by  Cilly,  and  the  two, 
as  if  by  one  impulse,  fell  into  each  other's  arms. 

"  Daphne,  dear  Daph,"  murmured  the  impetu- 
ous Cilly, "  I  am  the  happiest  girl  in  all  the  world." 

"And  I,"  said  Daphne  simply,  "am  the  most 
miserable." 


BOOK  THREE 
THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 


CHAPTER 

THE   COUNTERSTROKE 


THE  scene  is  the  Restaurant  International,  a 
palatial  house  of  refreshment  in  Regent  Street; 
the  time,  half -past  one.  At  a  table  in  the  corner  of 
the  Grand  Salle-a-Manger,  set  in  a  position  calcu- 
lated to  extract  full  value  from  the  efforts  of  a 
powerful  orchestra,  a  waiter  of  majestic  mien, 
with  a  powdered  head,  and  a  gold  tassel  on  his  left 
shoulder,  stands  towering  over  two  recently  ar- 
rived patrons  with  the  menu. 

The  patrons,  incredible  as  it  may  appear,  are 
Stephen  Blasius  Vereker  and  Veronica  Elizabeth 
Vereker.  Stiffy,  in  the  gala  dress  of  a  schoolboy 
of  eighteen,  is  perspiring  freely  under  the  gaze  of 
the  overpowering  menial  at  his  elbow;  Nicky,  in 
a  new  hat  of  colossal  but  correct  dimensions  (the 
gift  of  her  eldest  sister),  with  her  hair  gathered 
into  the  usual  ne  plus  ultra  of  the  "flapper,"  —  a 
warped  and  constricted  pigtail  tied  with  a  large 
black  bow  of  ribbon,  —  is  entirely  unruffled. 

How  they  got  there  will  appear  presently. 

"  Will  you  lunch  a  la  carte  or  table  d'hote,  sir?  " 


200    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

enquired  the  waiter,  much  as  an  executioner  might 
say,  "Will  you  be  drawn  or  quartered?" 

The  flustered  Stiffy  gazed  helplessly  at  his 
sister. 

"He  means,  will  you  pay  for  what  you  eat  or 
eat  what  you  pay  for,  dear,"  explained  that  ex- 
perienced but  flippant  young  person.  "  You  must 
excuse  him,"  she  added,  turning  her  round  and 
trustful  orbs  upon  the  waiter.  "He  is  not  accus- 
tomed to  being  given  a  choice  of  dishes." 

The  waiter,  realising  that  here  was  a  worthy 
opponent,  maintained  a  countenance  of  wood  and 
repeated  the  question. 

"You  had  better  give  me  the  menu,"  said  Miss 
Vereker.  " How  much  is  the  table  d'hote  lunch? " 

"Four  shillings,  Madam." 

Madam  mused. 

"Let  me  see,"  she  said  thoughtfully.  "Can 
we  run  to  it,  dear?" 

"Of  course!"  said  Stiffy  in  an  undertone,  red- 
dening with  shame.  "You  know,  Daphne  gave 
me—" 

Nicky  smiled  joyfully. 

"So  she  did.  I  had  forgotten.  Two  and  nine, 
wasn't  it?" 

Stiffy,  with  a  five-pound-note  crackling  in  his 
pocket,  merely  gaped. 

"Then,"  continued  Nicky,  calculating  on  her 
fingers,  "there  is  the  three  and  a  penny  which  we 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  201 

got  out  of  the  missionary-box.  That  makes  five 
and  tenpence.  And  there  is  that  shilling  that 
slipped  down  into  your  boot,  Stiffy.  You  can 
easily  get  under  the  table  and  take  it  off.  Six  and 
tenpence.  I  have  elevenpence  in  stamps,  and  that, 
with  the  threepenny-bit  we  picked  up  off  the  floor 
of  the  bus,  makes  eight  shillings.  We  can  just  do 
it.  Thank  you,"  she  intimated  to  the  waiter  with 
a  seraphic  smile,  "we  will  take  table  d'h6te.  I 
suppose,"  she  added  wistfully,  "there  would  be 
no  reduction  if  I  took  my  little  boy  on  my  knee?  " 

"None,  Madam." 

And  the  waiter,  still  unshaken,  departed  to  bring 
the  hors  d'oeuvres. 

"Nicky,  don't  play  the  goat!"  urged  the  re- 
spectable Stephen  in  a  low  and  agitated  voice. 
"That  blighter  really  believes  we  are  going  to  pay 
him  in  stamps.  We  shall  get  flung  out,  for  a 
cert!" 

"It's  all  right,"  said  Nicky.  "I  am  only  going 
to  try  and  make  him  laugh." 

"You'll  fail,"  said  her  brother  with  conviction. 

At  this  moment  a  mighty  tray,  covered  with 
such  inducements  to  appetite  as  anchovies,  sliced 
tomatoes,  sardines,  radishes,  chopped  celery, 
Strasburg  sausage,  et  hoc  genus  omne — all  equally 
superfluous  in  the  case  of  a  schoolboy  up  in  town 
on  an  exeat,  —  was  laid  before  him  with  a  stately 
flourish.  Then  the  waiter  came  stiffly  and  grimly 


202    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

to  attention,  and  stood  obviously  expectant. 
Hors  d'ceuvres  are  rather  puzzling  things.  Here 
was  a  chance  for  the  tyros  before  him  to  show 
their  mettle. 

They  showed  it. 

"One  gets  tired  of  these  everlasting  things," 
mused  Nicky  wearily.  "I'll  just  peck  at  one  or 
two.  You  can  fetch  the  soup,  waiter:  we  shall  be 
ready  for  it  immediately.'* 

"Thick  or  clear  soup,  Madam?" 

"We'll  have  thick  to  begin  with,  please:  then 
clear,"  replied  Nicky  calmly.  "  Stiffy,  I  will  take 
an  anchovy." 

The  waiter  was  not  more  than  two  minutes 
absent,  but  ere  he  returned  a  lightning  transfor- 
mation scene  had  been  enacted. 

Certainly  the  Briton,  with  all  his  faults,  sur- 
passes the  foreigner  in  the  control  of  emotions. 
What  a  Gaul  or  a  Teuton  would  have  done  on  wit- 
nessing the  sight  which  met  the  eyes  of  the  im- 
perturbable Ganymede  of  the  Restaurant  Inter- 
national when  he  returned  with  the  thick  soup,  it 
is  difficult  to  say.  The  first  would  probably  have 
wept,  the  second  have  sent  for  a  policeman.  For 
lo!  the  richly  dight  hors  d'ceuvres  tray  had  be- 
come a  solitude  —  the  component  parts  thereof 
were  duly  discovered  by  the  charwoman  next 
morning  amid  the  foliage  of  an  adjacent  palm  — 
and  the  tail  of  the  last  radish  was  disappearing 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  203 

into  Stiffy's  mouth.  Stiffy,  once  roused,  made  an 
excellent  accomplice,  though  he  had  no  initiative 
of  his  own. 

The  waiter's  face  twitched  ever  so  slightly,  and 
there  was  an  undulating  movement  in  the  region 
of  his  scarlet  waistcoat.  But  he  recovered  him- 
self in  time,  and  having  served  the  thick  soup, 
departed  unbidden  in  search  of  the  clear. 

"  Nicky,"  said  Stiffy,  in  a  concerned  voice,  "are 
we  really  going  to  have  everything  on  the  menu?  " 

"  You  are,  my  son,"  replied  Nicky.  "I,  being  a 
lady,  will  make  use  of  this  palm-tub." 

The  waiter  brought  the  clear  soup,  and  asked 
for  instruction  with  regard  to  the  fish. 

"What  sort  of  fish  have  you?" 

The  man  proffered  the  card. 

"Sole:  Sauce  tartare.  That  means  sole  with 
tartar  sauce,"  Nicky  translated  glibly  for  the 
benefit  of  her  untutored  relative.  "  We  had  better 
not  have  that.  —  Tartar  sauce  always  makes  him 
sick,"  she  explained  to  the  waiter,  indicating  the 
fermenting  Stiffy.  "What  else  is  there?  Let  me 
see  —  ah !  Blanchailles!  —  er  —  Blanchailles  I  A 
very  delicate  fish !  Quite  so.  You  may  bring  us  " 
—  her  brain  worked  desperately  behind  a  smiling 
face,  but  fruitlessly  —  "a  blanchaille,  waiter." 

There  was  an  ominous  silence.  Then  the  waiter 
asked,  in  a  voice  tinged  with  polite  incredulity:  — 

"A  whole  one  each,  Madam?" 


204    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"Certainly,"  said  Madam  in  freezing  tones. 

The  waiter  bowed  deferentially,  and  departed. 

"Stiffy,"  enquired  Nicky  in  agonized  tones, 
"what  is  a  blanchaille?  Don't  say  it's  a  cod!" 

Stiffy  devoted  three  hours  a  week  to  the  study 
of  modern  languages,  but  so  far  no  blanchaille 
had  swum  into  his  vocabulary. 

"  I  Ve  a  notion,"  he  said,  after  a  prolonged  men- 
tal effort,  "  that  it  is  a  sturgeon." 

"How  big  is  a  sturgeon?" 

"It's  about  the  size  of  a  shark,  I  think." 

But  their  capacity  was  not  to  be  taxed  after 
all.  The  waiter  returned,  and,  with  the  nonchalant 
demeanour  of  a  hardened  clubman  playing  out  an 
unexpected  ace  of  trumps,  laid  down  two  plates. 
In  the  centre  of  each  reposed  a  single  forlorn, 
diminutive  whitebait. 

But  it  was  here  that  Veronica  Elizabeth  Vere- 
ker  rose  to  her  greatest  heights.  She  inspected 
her  own  portion  and  then  her  brother's. 

"Waiter,"  she  said  at  last,  "will  you  kindly 
take  away  this  young  gentleman's  fish  and  ask 
the  cook  to  give  you  a  rather  longer  one?  About 
three  quarters  of  an  inch,  I  should  say.  The  child  " 
—  indicating  her  hirsute  and  crimson  senior  — 
"gets  very  peevish  and  fretful  if  his  portion  is 
smaller  than  any  one  else's." 

Without  a  word  the  waiter  picked  up  Stiffy's 
plate  and  bore  it  away.  His  broad  back  had  be- 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  205 

come  slightly  bowed,  and  his  finely  chiselled  legs 
had  a  warped  and  bandy  appearance.  The  strain 
was  telling. 

Stiffy  gazed  upon  his  sister  in  rapt  admiration. 

"Nicky,  you  ripper!"  he  said. 

After  this  it  was  mere  child's  play  to  request  a 
stout  gentleman  with  a  chain  round  his  neck  to 
submit  the  wine-list,  —  an  imposing  volume  of 
many  pages,  —  and  after  a  heated  and  technical 
discussion  of  the  respective  merits  of  Pommery 
and  Cliquot,  to  order  one  stone  ginger  and  two 
glasses. 

Nicky  next  instructed  the  waiter  to  present  her 
compliments  to  the  leader  of  the  band  and  to  ask 
as  a  special  favour  that  he  and  his  colleagues 
would  oblige  with  a  rendering  of  Shall  We  Gather 
at  the  River  ?  The  waiter  returned  with  a  reply  to 
the  effect  that  the  chef  d'orchestre  would  be  de- 
lighted. Unfortunately  he  had  not  the  full  score 
by  him  at  the  moment,  but  had  sent  along  to  the 
Cafe  Royal  to  borrow  a  copy.  Everything  would 
be  in  readiness  about  teatime.  It  was  then  a  little 
after  two,  and  it  was  admitted  by  both  Nicky  and 
Stiffy  that  honours  on  this  occasion  were  divided. 

So  far  both  sides,  as  the  umpires  say  on  Terri- 
torial field-days,  had  acquitted  themselves  in  a 
manner  deserving  great  credit;  but  the  waiter 
scored  the  odd  and  winning  trick  a  little  later,  in 
a  particularly  subtle  manner.  Age  and  experience 


206    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

always  tell.  Nicky,  unduly  inflated  by  early  suc- 
cess, insisted  upon  Stiffy  ordering  a  liqueur  with 
his  coffee.  Green  Chartreuse  was  finally  selected 
and  brought. 

"Shall  I  pour  it  into  your  coffee,  sir?"  asked 
the  waiter  respectfully. 

"Please,"  said  the  unsuspecting  Stiffy. 

The  man  obeyed,  and  directly  afterwards 
emitted  a  sound  which  caused  both  children  to 
glance  up  suddenly.  They  glared  suspiciously, 
first  at  one  another,  then  at  the  back  of  the  re- 
treating foe. 

"Do  people  drink  Green  Chartreuse  in  their 
coffee?"  asked  Nicky  apprehensively. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Stiffy.  He  tasted  the 
compound.  "No,  I'm  blowed  if  they  do!  Nicky, 
we've  been  had.  He's  one  up!" 

"  It  would  score  him  off,"  replied  the  undefeated 
Nicky,  "if  you  could  manage  to  be  sick." 

But  Stiffy  held  out  no  hope  of  this  happy  re- 
taliation; and  they  ultimately  produced  the  five- 
pound  note  and  paid  the  score  with  somewhat 
chastened  mien,  adding  a  douceur  which  was  as 
excessive  as  it  was  unnecessary.  Waiters  do  not 
get  much  entertainment  out  of  serving  meals  as  a 
rule. 

ii 

"Now  we  must  meet  Daphne,"  said  Stiffy,  as 
they  left  the  restaurant  and  hailed  a  cab. 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  207 

They  were  in  town  for  an  all  too  brief  sojourn 
of  twenty-four  hours,  to  assist  at  the  inspection 
of  Daphne's  new  house.  It  was  now  February, 
and  Lady  Carr  had  not  seen  her  husband  since 
the  eruption  at  Belton  the  summer  before.  Jug- 
gernaut had  made  no  attempt  to  prevent  her  going 
home,  and  when  she  wrote  later,  requesting  that 
Master  Brian  Vereker  Carr  might  be  sent  to  her, 
had  despatched  him  without  remonstrance.  No 
one  save  Cilly  and  her  beloved  Godfrey — least  of 
all  the  Rector — knew  of  the  true  state  of  affairs; 
and  all  during  that  autumn  and  winter  Daphne 
was  happier  in  a  fashion  than  she  had  ever  been. 
To  a  large  extent  she  resumed  command  of  the 
household,  setting  Cilly  free  for  other  very  right 
and  natural  diversions;  and  a  sort  of  edition  de 
luxe  of  the  old  days  came  into  being,  with  first- 
hand food  at  every  meal  and  a  boy  to  clean  the 
boots  and  drive  the  pony. 

Daphne  was  entirely  impervious  to  the  gravity 
of  the  situation.  There  are  certain  women  who 
are  curiously  wanting  in  all  sense  of  responsibility. 
They  preserve  the  child's  lack  of  perspective  and 
proportion  even  after  they  grow  up,  and  the  con- 
sequences are  sometimes  disastrous.  If  love  ar- 
rives upon  the  scene,  no  further  harm  ensues,  for 
the  missing  qualities  spring  up,  with  that  Jo- 
nah's-gourd-like  suddenness  which  characterises 
so  many  feminine  developments,  at  the  first 


208    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

touch  of  the  newcomer's  hand.  The  retarded  fac- 
ulties achieve  maturity  in  a  flash,  and  their  owner 
becomes  maternal,  solicitous,  Martha-like;  and 
all  is  well. 

Daphne  was  one  of  these  women;  but  so  far, 
unfortunately,  she  had  failed  to  fall  in  love.  Her 
marriage  had  never  really  touched  her.  Her  hus- 
band had  vibrated  many  strings  in  her  responsive, 
impulsive  young  heart,  —  gratitude,  affection, 
admiration,  —  but  the  great  harmonious  com- 
bination, the  master-chord,  had  yet  to  be  struck. 
Consequently  she  saw  nothing  unusual  in  living 
apart  from  her  husband,  financing  her  family 
with  his  money,  and  enjoying  herself  with  friends 
whom  he  did  not  know. 

Early  in  the  year,  however,  it  occurred  to  her 
that  it  would  be  pleasant  to  go  home  again  for  a 
time.  Her  elastic  nature  had  entirely  recovered 
from  the  stress  of  last  summer's  crisis,  and  she 
was  frankly  consumed  with  curiosity  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  new  house  in  Berkeley  Square  —  and 
said  so.  It  was  perhaps  an  unfortunate  reason  for 
a  wife  to  give  for  wishing  to  return  to  her  husband, 
but  this  did  not  occur  to  her  at  the  time.  She  re- 
ceived a  brief  note  in  reply,  saying  that  the  furn- 
ishing and  decorating  were  now  practically  com- 
pleted, and  the  house  ready  for  her  inspection 
any  time  she  cared  to  come  up  to  town.  Hence 
this  joyous  expedition. 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  209 

Daphne  had  half-expected  to  find  her  husband 
waiting  for  her  at  the  house,  for  the  Parliamentary 
Recess  was  over  and  she  knew  he  was  almost  cer- 
tain to  be  in  town.  Instead,  she  was  received  by 
an  overwhelmingly  polite  individual  named  Hib- 
bins,  from  the  house-furnishers'.  Mr.  Hibbins's 
appearance  and  deportment  proved  a  sore  trial 
to  the  composure  of  Nicky,  who  exploded  at  fre- 
quent and  unexpected  intervals  throughout  the 
afternoon,  lamely  alleging  the  fantastic  design  of 
some  very  ordinary  wall-paper  or  the  shortness 
of  Stiffy's  Sunday  trousers,  in  excuse. 

It  was  essentially  a  masculine  house,  furnished 
in  accordance  with  a  man's  ideas  of  solidity  and 
comfort.  The  high  oak  panelling  and  dark  green 
frieze  in  the  dining-room  pleased  Daphne,  who 
recognised  that  glass  and  silver,  well  illuminated, 
would  show  up  bravely  in  such  a  setting.  The 
drawing-room  was  perhaps  a  little  too  severe  in  its 
scheme  of  decoration:  Daphne  would  have  pre- 
ferred something  more  feminine.  "But  that 
comes,"  she  reflected  characteristically,  "of  leav- 
ing it  to  your  partner!"  There  was  a  billiard- 
room  in  which  Nicky  declared  it  would  be  a  sin  to 
place  a  billiard-table,  so  perfectly  was  it  adapted 
for  waltzing  after  dinner. 

Opening  out  of  the  billiard-room  was  a  plainly 
furnished  but  attractive  little  set  of  apartments, 
—  "the  bachelor  suite,"  Mr.  Hibbins  designated 


210    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

it,  —  consisting  of  a  snug  study  with  an  apart- 
ment adjoining,  containing  a  small  camp-bed 
and  a  large  bath.  Daphne's  own  rooms  consisted 
of  a  bedroom  and  boudoir  on  the  first  floor,  with 
wide  bow  windows. 

The  nursery  came  last.  It  was  a  large  irregular- 
shaped  room  at  the  top  of  the  house,  full  of  un- 
expected corners  and  curious  alcoves  such  as 
children  love,  affording  convenient  caves  for  rob- 
bers and  eligible  lairs  for  wild  beasts,  fabulous  or 
authentic.  Besides  the  regulation  nursery  furn- 
iture there  was  a  miniature  set,  in  green  stained 
wood  —  a  table  barely  eighteen  inches  high,  a 
tiny  armchair,  and  a  miniature  sofa  upon  which 
Master  Brian's  friends  might  recline  when  they 
came  to  drink  tea,  or  its  equivalent.  Round  the 
whole  room  ran  a  brightly  coloured  dado  covered 
with  life-size  figures  of  all  the  people  we  love  when 
we  are  young  —  Jack  the  Giant  Killer,  Old  King 
Cole,  Cinderella,  and  the  Three  Bears.  Even  Peter 
Pan,  with  residence  and  following,  was  there. 
The  spectacle  of  Doctor  Johnson  taking  a  walk 
down  Fleet  Street  would  pale  to  insignificance 
compared  with  that  of  Master  Brian  Vereker 
Carr  enjoying  a  constitutional  along  his  own 
dado,  encountering  a  new  friend  round  every  cor- 
ner. 

Daphne  suddenly  realised  that  here  was  yet 
another  aspect  of  this  strange,  impenetrable  hus- 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  211 

band  of  hers.  The  room  in  its  way  was  a  work  of 
genius  —  the  genius  that  understands  children. 

As  they  departed  to  catch  the  afternoon  train 
to  Snayling,  the  obsequious  Mr.  Hibbins  pro- 
duced a  letter. 

Sir  John  Carr,  he  explained,  had  called  at  the 
head  office  of  their  firm  that  morning  —  inperson, 
Mr.  Hibbins  added  with  a  gratified  smile  —  and 
requested  that  this  letter  should  be  handed  to  her 
ladyship  in  the  afternoon.  Sir  John  had  also  in- 
structed Mr.  Hibbins  to  inform  her  ladyship  that 
any  improvements  or  alterations  which  she  desired 
had  only  to  be  mentioned  to  be  carried  out. 

Mr.  Hibbins  having  handed  them  into  a  cab 
and  bidden  them  an  unctuous  fare  well,  they  drove 
away  to  the  station,  Nicky  atoning  for  previous 
aloofness  by  hanging  out  of  the  window  and  wav- 
ing her  handkerchief  until  they  turned  the  corner. 

in 

The  journey  from  London  to  Snayling  —  in- 
volving as  it  does  a  run  of  forty  miles  by  mail 
line,  a  wait  of  indefinite  duration  at  a  junction, 
furnished  with  no  other  facilities  for  recreation 
than  a  weighing-machine  and  a  printed  and  de- 
tailed record  of  the  awful  fate  which  awaits  per- 
sons who  compass  the  awe-inspiring  but  cumbrous 
crime  of  travelling-by-a-class-superior-to-that- 
to-which-the-ticket-in-their-possession-entitles- 


212    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE! 

them,  and  concluding  with  an  interminable  crawl 
along  a  branch  line  —  is  not  at  first  sight  an  en- 
terprise that  promises  much  joyous  adventure; 
but  Nicky  and  Stiffy,  who  usually  contrived  to 
keep  ennui  at  arm's  length,  had  a  very  tolerable 
time  of  it. 

Their  efforts  at  first  were  directed  to  securing 
a  compartment  to  themselves — an  achievement 
which,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  fairly  epit- 
omises the  Englishman's  outlook  on  life  in  gen- 
eral. 

"  Hang  your  face  out  of  the  window,  Stiffy,  my 
lad,"  commanded  Nicky,  returning  from  an  un- 
successful attempt  to  wheedle  the  guard  into  la- 
belling their  carriage  "engaged";  "and  play  at 
Horatius  Codes  till  the  train  starts.  That  ought 
to  do  the  trick." 

But  no!  At  the  last  moment  a  crusty -looking 
old  gentleman  wrenched  the  door  open,  nearly 
precipitating  Horatius  Codes  (and  face)  on  to 
the  platform,  and  sat  down  with  great  determina- 
tion in  the  corner  seat.  He  glared  ferociously  at 
the  demure-looking  pair  before  him,  in  a  manner 
which  intimated  plainly  that  he  was  too  old  a 
customer  to  be  kept  out  of  his  usual  compartment 
by  tricks  of  that  kind.  After  this  he  produced  the 
Westminster  Gazette  from  a  handbag  and  began 
to  read  it. 

Nicky  gave  him  five  minutes.   Then,  turning 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  213 

to  her  brother  and  scrutinising  his  freckled  coun- 
tenance, she  observed  in  clear  and  measured 
tones :  — 

"I  think  they  have  let  you  out  rather  soon, 
John." 

Stiffy,  realising  that  he  was  the  person  ad- 
dressed, and  that  some  fresh  game  was  afoot, 
looked  as  intelligent  as  possible,  and  waited. 
Daphne,  in  the  far  corner  of  the  carriage,  hurriedly 
opened  her  husband's  letter  and  began  to  read  it. 

"The  marks  are  n't  all  gone  yet,"  continued 
Nicky,  inspecting  her  brother  anxiously.  "Are 
you  still  peeling?" 

"Yes  —  I  think  so,"  said  Stiffy,  groping  for 
his  cue. 

"Ah!"  Nicky  nodded  her  head  judicially. 
"  We  must  give  you  a  carbolic  bath  when  we  get 
you  home." 

The  Westminster  Gazette  emitted  a  perceptible 
crackle. 

"It  will  never  do,"  pursued  Nicky,  getting  into 
her  stride,  "to  have  you  disfigured  for  life." 

Stiffy,  who  was  impervious  to  all  reflections 
upon  his  personal  appearance,  grinned  faintly. 
Opposite,  a  scared  and  bulging  eye  slid  cautiously 
round  the  edge  of  the  Westminster  Gazette,  and 
embarked  upon  a  minute  and  apprehensive  in- 
spection of  the  plague-stricken  youth.  Nicky 
saw,  and  thrilled  with  gratification.  She  was  on 


214    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

the  point  of  continuing  when  the  train  dived  into 
a  tunnel.  Having  no  desire  that  the  schemes 
should  go  awry  in  the  din,  she  waited. 

The  train  came  to  a  sudden  and  unexplained 
stop.  Deathlike  silence  reigned,  broken  only  by 
murmurs  of  conversation  from  next  door.  Pres- 
ently in  the  gross  darkness,  Nicky's  voice  was 
once  more  uplifted. 

"By  the  way,  is  it  infectious,  or  merely  con- 
tagious ?  I  meant  to  ask  when  I  called  for  you  at 
the  Institute,"  —  she  was  rather  proud  of  that 
inspiration:  an  Institute  sounded  more  terrify- 
ing and  mysterious  than  a  Hospital,-  "but  in 
the  excitement  of  that  last  fainting-fit  of  yours,  I 
forgot.  Which  is  it?" 

"Both,  I  think,"  said  Stiffy,  anxious  to  help. 

"Ah!  I  feared  as  much.  Still,  things  might  be 
worse,"  commented  Nicky  philosophically.  "So 
many  of  these  complaints  are  infectious  in  the 
early  stages,  when  no  one  suspects  any  danger. 
Mumps,  for  instance,  or  scarlet  fever.  But 
others,  like  yours,  are  only  infectious  in  the  con- 
valescent stage,  and  then  of  course  one  knows 
exactly  where  one  is." 

There  was  a  crumpling  of  paper  in  the  darkness, 
accompanied  by  a  shuffling  of  feet  and  a  vibrat- 
ory motion  of  the  seat-cushions  —  all  indicative 
of  the  presence  of  one  who  knows  exactly  where 
he  is,  and  regrets  the  fact  exceedingly. 


THE   COUNTERSTROKE  215 

"The  air  is  very  close  in  here,"  resumed 
Nicky's  voice.  "I  wonder —  "  she  whispered  a 
sentence  into  Stiffy's  ear,  the  only  distinguish- 
able word  in  which  was  "germs."  "Of  course  I 
have  had  it  —  slightly,*'  she  added  in  a  relieved 
tone. 

Something  moved  again  in  the  darkness  oppo- 
site to  them,  and  then  came  a  sound  as  of  a  win- 
dow being  cautiously  slid  open. 

"Still,  I  think,"  replied  Stiffy  solicitously, — 
as  usual  he  was  warming  up  to  the  game  slowly 
but  surely,  —  "that  it  would  be  wiser  for  you  to 
keep  your  mouth  closed  and  breathe  through 
your  nose.  One  cannot  be  too  careful." 

"All  right,"  said  Nicky. 

Once  again  silence  reigned.  But  presently  there 
fell  upon  the  ears  of  the  conspirators,  rendered 
almost  incredulous  by  joy,  an  unmistakable  and 
stertorous  sound,  as  of  some  heavy  and  asthmatic 
body  taking  in  air  through  unaccustomed  chan- 
nels. 

Five  minutes  later  the  train,  groaning  arthrit- 
ically,  resumed  its  way  and  crawled  out  of  the 
tunnel  into  a  station.  Nicky  and  Stiffy,  blinking 
in  the  sudden  daylight,  beheld  the  reward  of  their 
labours.  A  corpulent  and  rapidly  ageing  citizen, 
shrinking  apprehensively  into  a  corner  of  the 
compartment  and  holding  a  small  handbag  upon 
his  knees  as  if  with  a  view  to  instant  departure,  sat 


216    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

glaring  malignantly  upon  them.  His  face  was 
mottled,  his  mouth  was  firmly  closed,  and  he 
breathed  perse veringly  through  his  nostrils. 

Next  moment  he  had  flung  open  the  door  and 
was  out  upon  the  platform,  inhaling  great  gulps 
of  vernal  air  and  looking  for  the  police. 

"Stiffy,  you  darling!  I'll  never  call  you  a  fat- 
head again!"  declared  Nicky,  enthusiastically 
embracing  her  complacent  accomplice.  ;'That 
notion  of  yours  to  make  him  breathe  through  his 
nose  was  simply  It!  Daph,  was  n't  it  splen — 
Hallo !  Bless  me,  Stiffy,  if  Daph  is  n't  breathing 
through  her  nose  too !  Look ! " 

Certainly  Daphne's  lips  were  tightly  com- 
pressed, but  she  turned  to  her  companions  and 
smiled  faintly. 

"It's  all  right,  kids,"  she  said.  "I  think  this 
carriage  is  overheated,  or  something.  I  shall  be 
all  right  in  a  minute.  Keep  that  window  open, 
Stiffy,  dear." 

She  was  very  white,  but  on  emphatically  de- 
clining Nicky's  offer  of  first  aid  she  was  left  to 
herself,  while  her  brother  and  sister  discussed  the 
course  to  be  followed  in  the  event  of  another  in- 
vasion of  the  carriage.  Like  true  artists,  they 
scorned  to  achieve  the  same  effect  by  the  same 
means  twice  running. 

Meanwhile  Daphne  re-read  her  husband's 
letter. 


THE  COUNTERSTROKE  217 

"...  I  have  waited  six  months,  and  as  you 
display  no  inclination  to  look  facts  in  the  face,  I 
am  compelled  to  take  the  initiative  myself.  As 
far  as  I  can  gather  from  your  attitude,  you  seem 
to  consider  that  things  are  very  well  as  they  are. 
On  this  point  I  beg  to  differ  from  you.  The  pres- 
ent situation  must  end.  We  must  either  come  to- 
gether again  or  part  for  good  on  some  definitely 
arranged  terms. 

"...  As  you  have  exhibited  no  desire  to  re- 
concile yourself  to  me,  —  your  letter  indicates 
that  your  sole  object  in  returning  home  is  to  play 
with  your  latest  toy,  the  new  house,  —  I  con- 
clude that  you  wish  to  remain  your  own  mistress. 
I  therefore  place  the  new  house  entirely  at  your 
disposal.  You  can  draw  money  as  you  require  it 
from  Coutts's,  and  I  will  see  to  it  that  there  is 
always  an  adequate  balance.  I  think,  if  you  have 
no  objection,  that  it  would  be  as  well  if  I  occasion- 
ally came  to  the  house,  and  occupied  the  bache- 
lor suite  off  the  billiard-room ;  but  I  shall  come  and 
go  without  troubling  you.  I  think  we  ought  to 
make  this  concession  to  appearances.  I  should 
not  like  your  father,  for  instance,  to  be  made  un- 
happy by  the  knowledge  that  his  daughter  and 
her  husband  found  it  better  to  go  their  several 
ways. 

"...  As  for  the  custody  of  the  boy  — " 

A  long  slow  shudder  rippled  down  Daphne's 


218    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

spine.  Custody!  There  was  a  horribly  legal,  end- 
of-all-things,  divorce-court  flavour  about  the 
word. 

"  I  think  it  would  be  a  good  scheme,  Stiffy,  dear," 
broke  in  Nicky's  cheerful  voice,  "for  you  to  pre- 
tend this  time  that  you  had  just  been  discharged 
from  an  asylum.  I  will  be  taking  you  home 
and  —  "  Her  voice  faded. 

"...  You  will  naturally  like  to  have  him  with 
you  while  he  is  a  mere  child.  I  will  therefore  leave 
him  in  your  hands  for  the  present.  Later,  when 
he  goes  to  a  Public  School  and  University,  I 
think  I  should  like  him  to  be  with  me  during  the 
holidays.  When  he  grows  up  altogether  he  must 
please  himself  about  —  ' 

Public  School!  University!  Daphne  turned 
sick  and  faint.  Were  the  provisions  of  this  mer- 
ciless letter  to  cover  all  eternity?  What  had  she 
done  to  deserve  this? 

"It  would  be  a  bright  thought,"  continued 
Nicky's  voice,  returning  from  a  great  distance, 
"to  roll  up  your  handkerchief  into  a  ball  and  put 
it  right  into  your  mouth.  Then  do  something  to 
attract  their  attention,  and  when  they  are  all 
looking,  pull  it  right  out  with  a  jerk,  and  mop 
and  mow.  Can  you  mop  and  mow,  Stiffy?  Mop 
anyhow !  Just  before  a  station,  you  know,  so  that 
they  can  get  out.  If  that  does  n't  work,  roll  about 
on  the  cushions,  and  — 


THE   COUNTERSTROKE  219 

Daphne  detached  her  gaze  from  the  flying 
landscape,  and  finished  the  letter. 

"Forgive  me  if  I  appear  to  have  resorted  to 
extreme  or  harsh  measures.  I  suppose  I  am  a 
hard  man;  at  any  rate  I  am  not  pliable.  I  dare 
say  if  I  had  been  differently  built  I  might  have 
played  the  part  of  the  modern  husband  with  fair 
success,  and  you  could  have  picked  your  compan- 
ions at  will.  Unfortunately  I  would  rather  die 
than  permit  you  to  impose  such  a  regime  upon 
me,  as  you  seem  prepared  to  do.  The  thing  is 
degrading.  To  my  mind  there  can  be  no  compro- 
mise, no  half-measures,  between  man  and  wife. 
It  must  be  all  in  all,  or  not  at  all 

"Lastly,  Daphne,  let  me  say  how  sorry  I  am 
that  things  have  come  to  this  pass.  I  realise  that 
it  is  my  fault.  I  should  not  have  asked  a  young 
and  inexperienced  girl  to  marry  me.  You  could 
not  be  expected  to  know  better:  I  might  and 
should.  And  it  is  because  I  realise  and  admit  that 
the  fault  is  mine,  that  I  refrain  from  attaching 
any  blame  to  you  or  uttering  any  reproaches.  All 
I  can  do  is  to  say  that  I  am  sorry,  and  make  it 
possible  for  you  to  go  your  way,  unhampered  as 
far  as  may  be  by  the  ties  of  a  marriage  which 
should  never  have  taken  place. 

"If  I  can  at  any  time  be  of  service  to  you, 
command  me.  I  can  never  forget  that  we  have 
had  our  happy  hours  together.'* 


220    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

Daphne  folded  up  the  letter  with  mechanical 
deliberation.  The  first  numbness  was  over.  Her 
brain  was  clear  again,  and  thoughts  were  crowd- 
ing in  upon  her.  But  two  things  overtopped  all 
the  others  for  the  moment. 

The  first  was  the  realisation  of  the  truth  of  her 
husband's  words.  The  old  situation  had  been  im- 
possible —  as  impossible  as  the  new  one  was  in- 
evitable. She  saw  that  —  at  last.  "All  in  all,  or 
not  at  all,"  he  had  said,  and  he  was  right. 

The  second  was  a  sudden  awakening  to  the 
knowledge  that  we  never  begin  really  to  want 
a  thing  in  this  world  until  we  find  we  cannot 
have  it. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

INTERVENTION 


"MADAME,*'  announced  the  major-domo  of  the 
Hotel  Magnifique  with  a  superb  gesture,  "the 
post  from  England!'* 

"Thank  you,  Themistocle,"  said  Mrs.  Carfrae. 
"But  you  are  over-generous:  one  of  these  letters 
is  not  for  me." 

She  handed  back  an  envelope. 

Themistocle,  needless  to  remark,  was  desolated 
at  his  own  carelessness,  and  said  so.  But  the  old 
lady  cut  him  short. 

"Don't  distress  yourself  unduly,  Themistocle. 
It  is  a  mistake  even  an  English  body  might  have 
made.  There  is  not  much  difference  between 
Carfrae  and  Carthew." 

The  punctilious  Themistocle  refused  to  be  com- 
forted. 

"But  no,  Madame,"  he  persisted;  "I  should 
have  observed  that  the  letter  addressed  itself  to  a 
Monsieur,  and  not  a  Madame.  Doubtless  it  is 
intended  for  one  of  the  English  party  who  arrive 
this  afternoon.** 

"An  English  party?  Is  my  seclusion  to  be  dis- 


222    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

turbed  by  the  disciples  of  the  good  Monsieur 
Cook?" 

"Assuredly  no,  Madame.  These  are  English 
milords  from  Marseilles.  The  Riviera  season  has 
been  a  failure :  the  mistral  blows  eternally.  There- 
fore the  party  abandons  Cannes  and  telegraphs 
for  apartments  at  the  Hdtel  Magnifique." 

"Are  they  from  London?  Possibly  I  may  be 
acquainted  with  some  of  them.  What  are  their 
names?" 

Themistocle  would  enquire.  He  departed 
amid  a  whirlwind  of  bows,  leaving  Mrs.  Carfrae 
to  continue  her  dejeuner  in  the  sunny  verandah 
of  her  sitting-room.  She  came  to  Algiers  every 
spring,  and  she  came  unattended  save  for  a  grim- 
faced  Scottish  maid  of  her  own  age.  It  was  Mrs. 
Carfrae's  habit  to  assume  that  she  and  her 
wheeled  chair  were  a  drag  upon  the  world;  and 
she  systematically  declined  invitations  to  join 
friends  upon  the  Riviera.  People,  she  explained, 
who  would  otherwise  have  been  playing  tennis  at 
the  Beau  Site  or  roulette  at  the  Casino  would  feel 
bound  to  relinquish  these  pursuits  and  entertain 
her.  So  she  came  to  Algiers  by  herself,  this  proud, 
lonely  lady. 

" Carthew? "  she  mused.  "That  is  the  name  of 
Johnny  Carr's  familiar  spirit.  And  that  letter 
was  in  Johnny's  handwriting.  Well,  Themistocle, 
who  are  —  Stand  stilly  man ! " 


INTERVENTION  223 

Themistocle  reluctantly  curtailed  an  elaborate 
obeisance,  and  came  to  attention.  The  leader  of 
the  expedition,  he  announced,  was  Milord  the 
Right  Honourable  Sir  Hilton  Bart,  with  Milady 
Hilton  Bart.  The  names  of  the  other  guests  were 
not  known,  but  there  were  eleven  of  them. 

They  arrived  on  the  steamer  that  afternoon, 
and  drove  in  an  imposing  procession  up  the  long 
and  dusty  hill  that  leads  to  Mustapha  Superieur, 
leaving  Algiers  —  that  curious  combination  of 
Mauretanian  antiquity  and  second-rate  French 
provincialism  —  baking  peacefully  in  the  hot 
sunshine  below.  As  Themistocle  had  predicted, 
they  came  unshepherded  by  the  good  Mr.  Cook. 
They  were  of  the  breed  and  caste  that  has  always 
found  its  own  way  about  the  world. 

There  was  Sir  Arthur  Hilton,  a  slow-moving 
Briton  of  few  words,  with  a  pretty  wife  of  com- 
plementary volubility.  There  were  one  or  two 
soldiers  on  leave;  there  was  a  Cambridge  don; 
there  were  three  grass  widows.  There  were  two 
newly  emancipated  schoolgirls,  gobbling  life  in 
indigestible  but  heavenly  lumps.  There  was  a  tall 
and  beautiful  damosel,  with  a  demeanour  which 
her  admirers  —  and  they  were  many  —  described 
as  regal,  and  which  her  detractors  —  and  their 
name  was  legion  —  described  as  affected;  and 
whom  her  chaperon,  Lady  Hilton,  addressed  as 
"Nine,  dearest."  And  there  was  a  squarely 


224    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

built,  freckle-faced  young  man  with  whom  we 
are  already  acquainted.  His  name  was  Jim 
Carthew. 

Altogether  they  were  a  clean-bred,  self-con- 
tained, easy-going  band,  unostentatious  but 
quietly  exclusive  —  thoroughly  representative  of 
the  sanest  and  most  reputable  section  of  that 
variegated  cosmos  which  breathes  the  air  of  what 
Gallic  students  of  British  sociology  term  "Le 
Higlif ."  Very  few  of  them  possessed  much  money : 
theirs  was  a  stratum  of  society  to  which  money 
was  no  passport.  You  could  have  money  if  you 
liked,  they  conceded,  but  you  must  have  a  good 
many  other  things  first.  Hence  the  absence  from 
their  midst  of  Hoggenheimer  and  Aspasia. 

Jim  Carthew  had  not  meant  to  come.  Jugger- 
naut had  given  him  six  weeks'  leave,  for  there 
had  been  an  Autumn  Session  in  town  and  an  in- 
dustrial upheaval  in  the  country,  and  the  squire 
had  worked  early  and  late  by  his  knight's  side. 
Consequently  when  the  spring  came,  Carthew 
was  summarily  bidden  to  go  away  and  fish.  With- 
out quite  knowing  why,  he  went  to  Cannes  in- 
stead, where  Nina  Tallentyre,  attended  by  a 
zealous  but  mutually  distrustful  guard-of -honour, 
was  enjoying  herself  after  her  fashion  under  the 
inadequate  wing  of  Lady  Hilton.  When  the  exo- 
dus to  Algiers  was  mooted,  Carthew  labelled  his 
portmanteau  London.  But  he  ultimately  crossed 


INTERVENTION  225 

the  Mediterranean  with  the  rest.  He  had  never 
seen  Africa,  he  explained  to  himself. 

Daphne  was  of  the  party  too.  (Possibly  the 
reader  has  already  identified  her  as  one  of  the 
three  grass  widows.)  She  had  despatched  Master 
Brian  Vereker  Carr  to  Belton  for  a  season,  and 
joined  the  Hilton's  party  four  weeks  ago.  The 
great  new  house  in  town  stood  empty.  After  her 
husband's  bombshell  in  March,  she  felt  bound  to 
do  something  to  show  her  spirit.  Another  strike 
was  brewing  in  the  North,  so  doubtless  her  lord 
and  master  would  soon  be  congenially  occupied 
in  starving  his  dependents  into  submission. 
Meanwhile  her  duty  was  to  herself.  Domestic 
ties  were  at  an  end.  She  would  enjoy  life. 

She  experienced  no  difficulty  in  the  execution 
of  this  project.  Every  one  seemed  anxious  to  as- 
sist her.  Despite  precautions,  the  fact  that  all 
was  not  well  in  the  house  of  Juggernaut  was  pub- 
lic property;  and  the  usual  distorted  rumours  on 
the  subject  had  set  out  upon  their  rounds,  going 
from  strength  to  strength  in  the  process.  Daphne 
was  soon  made  conscious  that  people  were  sorry 
for  her.  Frivolous  but  warm-hearted  women  were 
openly  sympathetic.  Large  clumsy  men  indicated 
by  various  awkward  and  furtive  acts  of  kindness 
that  they,  too,  understood  the  situation,  but  were 
too  tactful  to  betray  the  fact.  Altogether  Daphne 
was  in  a  fair  way  to  becoming  spoiled.  With  all  her 


226    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

faults,  no  one  had  ever  yet  been  able  or  inclined 
to  call  her  anything  but  unaffected  and  natural ; 
but  about  this  time  she  began  to  assume  the  vir- 
tuous and  long-suffering  demeanour  of  a  femme 
incomprise.  She  was  only  twenty -four,  and  few 
of  us  are  able  to  refuse  a  martyr's  crown  when  it  is 
pressed  upon  us. 

Only  her  monosyllabic  host  —  "The  Silent 
Knight,"  his  friends  called  him,  denying  him  his 
baronetcy  in  their  zest  for  the  nickname  —  was 
unable  to  appreciate  the  extreme  delicacy  of  the 
situation.  He  was  a  plain  man,  Arthur  Hilton, 
and  hated  mysteries. 

"Why  is  n't  that  girl  at  home,  lookin'  after  her 
husband,  Ethel?"  he  enquired  of  his  wife  one 
morning. 

"I  think  she  is  happier  with  us,  dear,"  replied 
Lady  Hilton  with  immense  solemnity. 

The  Silent  Knight  emitted  a  subdued  rumble, 
indicative  of  a  desire  to  argue  the  point,  and  con- 
tinued :  — 

"Happier  —  eh?  Hasn't  she  got  a  baby,  or 
somethin',  somewhere?  What  the  dev —  " 

"Yes,  dear,  she  has  a  baby,"  replied  his  wife, 
rolling  up  her  fine  eyes  to  the  ceiling;  "but  I 
fear  she  has  not  been  very  fortunate  in  her  mar- 
riage. She  was  the  daughter  of  a  country  cler- 
gyman -  -  dreadfully  poor,  I  understand  —  and 
wanted  to  improve  the  family  fortunes.  There 


INTERVENTION  227 

were  eight  or  nine  of  them,  so  she  took  this  old 
man  —  ' 

The  Silent  Knight's  engine  fairly  raced. 

"Old  man  be  damned!"  he  observed  with  sud- 
den heat.  "Sorry,  my  dear!  But  Jack  Carr  can't 
be  more  than  forty-six.  I  'm  forty-eight.  I  'm  an 
old  man,  too,  I  suppose,  being"  —  a  pause  for 
calculation  —  "  two  years  older.  Back  number  — 
eh?  One  foot  in  the  grave,  I  suppose!  You  lookin* 
about  for  my  successor,  Ethel  —  what?" 

It  was  useless  to  explain  to  this  obtuse  and 
uxorious  critic  that  a  young  and  sensitive  girl 
cannot  be  expected  to  dwell  continuously  beneath 
the  roof  of  a  husband  whose  tastes  are  not  her 
tastes,  who  has  merely  married  her  to  keep  house 
for  him,  and  who  neglects  her  into  the  bargain. 
Not  that  this  prevented  Lady  Hilton  from  en- 
deavouring to  do  so.  When  she  had  finished,  her 
husband  knocked  the  ashes  out  of  his  pipe,  and 
remarked :  — 

"  Can't  make  you  women  out.  Here 's  old  Jug- 
gernaut —  best  man  /  ever  came  across,  and  as 
kind  as  they  make  'em  —  marries  this  little  fool 
of  a  girl  and  gives  her  everything  she  wants ;  and 
she  goes  off  and  leaves  him  slavin'  at  his  work, 
while  she  comes  trapesin'  about  here  with  a  col- 
lection of  middle-aged  baby-snatchers  and  knock- 
kneed  loafers.  Next  thing,  she  '11  start  flirtin' ;  then 
she'll  fall  in  love  with  some  bounder,  and  then 


228    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

there'll  be  the  devil  of  a  mess.  Rotten,  I  call  it! 
Don't  know  what  wives  are  comin'  to,  nowadays. 
Have  you  goin'  off  next,  Ethel  —  leavin'  me  and 
the  kids  and  becomin'  a  Suffragette  —  what?" 

After  this  unusual  outburst  the  Silent  Knight 
throttled  himself  down  and  said  no  more,  all 
efforts  on  his  wife's  part  to  lure  him  into  ground 
less  favourable  to  his  point  of  view  proving  fruit- 
less. He  merely  smoked  his  pipe  and  emitted  an 
obstinate  purr. 

"But  what  else  can  one  expect,  dearest,"  Ethel 
Hilton  confided  to  a  friend  afterwards,  "if  one 
marries  an  internal  combustion  engine?" 

ii 

Neither  was  Mrs.  Carfrae  satisfied  to  find  her 
beloved  Johnny  Carr's  lawful  wife  disporting 
herself  in  her  present  company.  One  afternoon 
she  heckled  Jim  Carthew  upon  the  subject,  to  the 
extreme  embarrassment  of  that  loyal  youth.  The 
rest  of  the  party  had  gone  off  to  explore  Algiers, 
and  were  safely  occupied  for  the  present  with  the 
contemplation  of  the  passing  show  —  ghostlike 
Moors  in  snowy  burnouses,  baggy-trousered 
members  of  that  last  resort  of  broken  men,  La 
Legion  Etrangere,  and  spectacled  French  officials 
playing  at  colonies. 

Mrs.  Carfrae's  chair  had  been  wheeled  into  a 
corner  of  the  open  courtyard  which  occupied  the 


INTERVENTION  229 

middle  of  the  Hotel  Magnifique,  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  base  of  operations  of  a  pseudo-Tzigane 
orchestra  which  discoursed  languorous  melody 
twice  daily;  and  its  occupant  was  dispensing  to 
Carthew  what  Themistocle  was  accustomed  to 
describe  as  "some  five  o'clock.'* 

"So  you  are  leaving  us,  Mr.  Carthew,"  ob- 
served the  hostess. 

"  Yes,  the  day  after  to-morrow.  There  is  a  boat 
then.  I  must  go.  There  is  trouble  brewing  in  the 
colliery  districts  again,  and  Sir  John  wants  me." 

"And  will  you  take  Lady  Carr  with  you?" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Carthew,  flushing.  "We  are 
not  together.  I  mean,  it  is  not  on  her  account  that 
I  am  here." 

*So  I  have  noticed,"  said  Mrs.  Carfrae  drily. 

"I  was  invited  here  by  the  Hiltons,"  explained 
Carthew,  and  plunged  into  a  sea  of  unnecessary 
corroborative  details.  "I  was  quite  surprised  to 
find  Lady  Carr  here,"  he  concluded.  "I  thought 
she  was  in  London." 

"And  why,"  enquired  the  old  lady  with  sudden 
ferocity,  "is  she  not  at  Belton,  with  her  man?" 

The  faithful  Carthew  stiffened  at  once. 

"I  expect  Sir  John  sent  her  out  here  to  have  a 
good  time,"  he  said.  "He  could  not  get  away 
himself,  so  —  " 

Mrs.  Carfrae  surveyed  him  for  a  moment  over 
her  glasses. 


230    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"You  are  a  decent  lad,"  she  observed  rather 
unexpectedly. 

This  testimonial  had  its  desired  effect  of  re- 
ducing Carthew  to  silence,  and  Mrs.  Carfrae  con- 
tinued: — 

'  You  have  been  with  John  Carr  for  some  time 
now,  have  you  not?" 

"Yes;  ever  since  I  came  down  from  Cam- 
bridge." 

"How  did  you  meet  him?  He  does  not  take  to 
young  men  readily  as  a  rule,  so  I  have  heard." 

"I  had  the  luck,"  said  Carthew,  his  eye  kin- 
dling with  historic  reminiscence,  "  to  meet  him  at 
dinner  one  night  at  the  end  of  my  third  year,  at 
my  tutor's.  Sir  John  was  an  old  member  of  the 
College,  staying  there  for  the  week-end.  He  told 
us  at  dinner  that  he  had  come  up  to  find  a  good 
ignorant,  unlicked  cub,  to  help  him  with  his  work, 
who  could  be  trusted  to  obey  an  order  when  he 
received  one,  and  act  for  himself  when  he  did  not. 
Those  were  his  exact  words,  I  remember." 

"Aye,  they  would  be.  Go  on." 

"This  unlicked  cub  was  to  come  and  be  a  sort 
of  general  factotum  to  him,  and  do  his  best  to 
help  him  with  his  work,  and  so  on.  Marvyn  (the 
tutor)  and  I  sat  trying  to  think  of  likely  men,  and 
finally  we  made  a  list  of  about  six,  whom  Sir  John 
said  he  would  run  his  eye  over  next  day.  After 
that  I  went  off  to  bed.  I  remember  wishing  to  my- 


INTERVENTION  231 

self  that  I  had  taken  a  better^"degree  and  been 
a  more  prominent  member  of  the  College:  then 
I  might  have  had  a  shot  for  this  berth,  instead  of 
going  into  a  solicitor's  office.  But  as  things  were, 
I  hadn't  the  cheek.  Well,  do  you  know,  Jug — Sir 
John  came  round  to  me  next  morning  —  " 

"Before  breakfast,  I  doubt." 

"Yes;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  just  come  in 
from  a  run  and  was  sitting  down  to  it.  He  asked 
if  he  might  have  some:  and  after  that  he  offered 
me  —  ME!  —  this  grand  billet.  Of  course  I 
jumped  at  it,  —  who  would  n't,  to  be  with  a  man 
like  that?  —  and  I  have  been  with  him  ever 
since." 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Carfrae,  "you  should  know 
more  of  the  creature  than  most  folk.  What  is 
your  unbiased  opinion  of  him?" 

"I  think  he  is  the  greatest  man  that  ever 
lived,"  said  the  boy  simply. 

"Humph!  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  less 
sense  than  anybody  I  ever  knew,"  replied  the  old 
lady  calmly.  "Still,  you  are  entitled  to  your 
opinion.  I  need  not  trouble  you  with  an  account 
of  my  first  meeting  with  him:  it  occurred  a  long 
time  ago.  But  — wheel  me  a  little  nearer  the  sun, 
laddie :  this  corner  is  a  thing  too  shady  —  it  may 
interest  you  to  know  that  he  would  have  been  my 
son-in-law  to-day,  had  it  not  been"  —  she 
paused  for  a  moment,  very  slightly  —  "for  the 


232    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

uncertainty  of  human  life.  And  that  is  why  I 
take  something  more  than  a  passing  interest  in 
the  doings  of  that  slim-bodied,  brown-eyed,  tow- 
headed  hempie  that  he  married  on.  And  that 
brings  me  to  the  point.  Laddie,  those  two  are 
getting  over-far  apart,  and  it  must  be  stopped!" 

"Yes,  but  how?"  enquired  Carthew  dismally. 
"I  understand  that  entering  a  lion's  den  just  be- 
fore dinnertime  is  wisdom  itself  compared  with 
interfering  between  husband  and  wife." 

A  quiver  passed  through  Elspeth  Carfrae's  frail 
body,  and  she  straightened  herself  in  her  chair. 

"I  am  a  havering  and  doited  old  woman,"  she 
announced  with  great  decision,  "and  no  one 
takes  any  notice  of  what  I  say  or  do — but  I  tell 
you  this.  So  long  as  my  old  heart  beats  and  my 
old  blood  runs,  I  shall  be  perfectly  willing  to  face 
every  single  lion  in  the  Zoo,  gin  it  will  bring  a  mo- 
ment's happiness  to  Johnny  Carr.  The  lad  de- 
serves a  good  wife.  Once  he  nearly  got  one,  — 
the  best  and  fairest  in  all  the  world,  —  but  God 
decided  otherwise.  Now  he  has  got  another;  I 
know  her;  she  has  the  right  stuff  in  her.  And 
when  I  leave  this  hotel  next  week  I  am  going  to 
take  her  with  me,  in  her  right  mind,  and  deliver 
her  to  her  man!" 

The  old  lady  concluded  her  intimation  with 
tremendous  vigour.  Carthew  sat  regarding  her 
with  a  mixture  of  reverence  and  apprehension. 


INTERVENTION  233 

"In  her  right  mind?  Then  you  are  going  to  — 
to  speak  to  her  about  it?"  he  asked. 

"I  am,"  replied  Mrs.  Carfrae,  with  vigour. 

"I  would  do  anything,"  said  Carthew  awk- 
wardly, "to  put  things  right  between  those  two. 
But  supposing  you  make  your  attempt,  Mrs. 
Carfrae,  and  —  and  fail ;  won't  it  make  matters 
worse?" 

"Much,"  said  Mrs.  Carfrae  calmly.  "If  I  in- 
terfere, unsuccessfully,  I  doubt  if  either  of  them 
will  ever  speak  to  me  again.  That  is  the  usual 
and  proper  fate  of  busybodies.  But  —  I  am  go- 
ing to  risk  it !  Run  me  back  to  my  sitting-room, 
now,  and  call  Janet.  I  hear  your  friends  gather- 
ing out  there  in  the  verandah.  They  will  be 
through  with  Algiers." 


CHAPTER  XV 

JIM   CARTHEW 

BUT  our  two  conspirators  were  fated,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  to  exchange  r61es. 

The  following  evening  Daphne  and  Carthew 
found  themselves  sitting  together  in  the  hotel 
garden  after  dinner.  A  great  moon  shone  from  a 
velvety  African  sky;  the  scented  breeze  rustled 
in  the  palms;  and  the  music  of  the  band  drifted 
to  their  ears  in  intermittent  waves. 

It  was  one  of  those  nights  which  touch  the  im- 
agination and  stir  the  emotions  —  a  night  upon 
which  human  nature  expands  to  its  utmost  lim- 
its; a  night  upon  which  passion  awakes,  and 
long-cherished  secrets  are  whispered  into  sud- 
denly receptive  ears ;  also  a  night  upon  which 
the  Devil  stalks  abroad.  Dido  resided  a  few 
miles  from  this  spot.  It  was  probably  a  night  like 
this  that  made  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  JEneid 
worth  writing. 

If  Dido  failed  to  resist  such  environment,  what 
of  Daphne?  She  was  young;  she  was  intensely 
susceptible  to  such  things  as  moonshine  and  soft 
music;  and,  disguise  the  fact  from  herself  as  she 
might,  she  was  lonely.  It  was  not  altogether  sur- 


JIM  CARTHEW  235 

prising  that,  as  she  surveyed  this  silent,  comely 
youth,  who  lolled  beside  her  eyeing  the  glittering 
Mediterranean  in  stolid  abstraction,  she  should 
unconsciously  have  acquiesced  in  the  first  of  the 
dismal  prognostications  of  that  splenetic  but 
clear-sighted  baronet,  Sir  Arthur  Hilton.  Jim 
Carthew  had  occupied  Daphne's  thoughts  a  good 
deal  of  late,  and  to-night  she  felt  suddenly  con- 
scious of  a  desire  to  flirt  with  him. 

"Cigarette,  please!"  she  commanded. 

Carthew  silently  handed  her  his  case,  and  al- 
lowed her  to  select  and  light  her  own  cigarette  — 
a  prodigal  waste  of  opportunity,  as  any  profes- 
sional philanderer  could  have  told  her. 

"A  penny  for  your  thoughts!"  continued 
Daphne  pertly. 

Carthew,  struck  by  a  peculiar  note  in  her 
voice,  turned  and  looked  at  her.  He  was  met  by 
a  provocative  glance.  There  was  a  brief  silence. 
Then  he  said  gravely:  — 

"  I  don't  think  you  are  quite  out  for  that  sort  of 
thing,  Lady  Carr." 

Daphne,  feeling  as  if  she  had  received  a  whip- 
lash in  the  face,  stared  at  him,  white  with  anger. 
Then  she  rose  stiffly  from  her  seat,  and  moved 
towards  the  hotel.  Carthew  did  not  stir. 

"Don't  go,"  he  said;  "we  may  as  well  have 
this  out." 

Daphne  stood  irresolute.   Then  curiosity  got 


236    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

the  better  of  virtuous  indignation,  and  she  sat 
down  again. 

"Will  you  kindly  tell  me,"  she  said,  "what  you 
mean  by  talking  in  that  way?" 

Carthew's  honest  eyes  lingered  on  her  face  in  a 
manner  which  she  could  not  fathom.  Did  the 
man  love  her,  or  was  he  pitying  her,  or  was  he 
merely  indulging  in  sarcastic  reflections  at  her 
expense?  Whatever  his  motives,  he  had  a  knack 
of  compelling  attention. 

Presently  he  began  to  speak. 

"I  wonder,"  he  said,  as  if  talking  to  himself, 
"why  men  and  women  are  made  as  they  are. 
Why  does  A  love  B,  while  B  worships  C,  who  cares 
for  no  one  in  the  world  but  himself?  And  why 
does  D  insist  on  confusing  things  still  further  by 
not  quite  knowing  what  he  —  she  wants?  I  won- 
der. They  say  there  is  enough  money  spent  in 
charity  every  year  to  supply  the  needs  of  every 
poor  person  living,  but  so  much  is  misapplied 
that  many  have  to  go  without.  I  think  it  is  the 
same  with  human  affection.  There  is  so  much 
true  love  going  about  in  this  world  —  enough  to 
keep  all  of  us  well-nourished  and  contented.  But 
what  a  lot  of  it  goes  to  waste !  There  is  so  much 
overlapping!  Why,  I  wonder?  It  is  a  difficult 
business,  Life,  Daphne." 

He  had  never  called  her  Daphne  before,  but 
neither  of  them  seemed  to  notice  the  familiarity. 


JIM  CARTHEW  237 

"  We  're  a  contrary  crew,  we  mortals,"  he  con- 
tinued presently.  "Here  you  and  I  are  sitting  in 
the  moonshine,  inaugurating  a  flirtation,  though 
neither  of  us  cares  a  snap  for  the  other  —  in  that 
way.  Why,  I  wonder?  I  think  it  is  partly  due  to 
pride  —  wounded  pride.  You  are  angry  with 
your  husband  —  ' 

Daphne,  who  was  methodically  picking  her 
cigarette  to  pieces,  looked  up  indignantly. 

"I'm  not!"  she  said  hotly. 

"Oh  yes,  you  are,"  replied  Carthew.  "You 
think  you  are  not,  but  you  are.  You  try  to  be- 
lieve that  you  are  merely  indifferent  to  him,  but 
you  are  not.  As  for  me,  I  am  angry  too  — 
piqued  —  furious  —  jealous  —  raging  — •  I  admit 
it  —  with  a  girl  whom  I  dislike  intensely.  The 
more  I  see  of  her,  the  more  selfish,  affected,  shal- 
low, unwomanly  I  see  her  to  be.  And  yet  —  I 
loveheT'l  Why?  Why?  Why?  People  tell  me  she 
is  heartless,  soulless,  sordid,  greedy,  vulgar  — 
everything,  in  fact.  Sometimes  I  feel  they  are 
right.  Still"  —  he  dropped  his  head  into  his 
hands  and  continued  doggedly  —  "what  differ- 
ence does  that  make  to  me?  I  love  her!  She 
cared  for  me  once,  too.  She  told  me  so  —  and  she 
meant  it!  Perhaps  if  I  had  been  a  little  more  pa- 
tient with  her,  I  might  have  kept  her,  and  —  and 
helped  her  a  bit.  Perhaps  that  was  what  I  was 
sent  into  the  world  for  —  to  make  things  easier 


238    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

for  Nina.  I  could  have  done  so  much  for  her,  too. 
I  could  have  made  a  woman  of  her.  She  has  her 
soft  side:  I  know;  I  have  seen  it.  No  other  man 
can  say  that.  Meanwhile,"  —  he  continued  with 
a  whimsical  smile,  —  "I  am  trying  to  solace  my- 
self by  allowing  you  to  flirt  with  me  — " 

Daphne  drew  her  breath  sharply. 

"  —  And  you  are  not  very  good  at  it,"  con- 
cluded Carthew  unexpectedly. 

"  You  are  very  candid,"  said  Daphne  frigidly. 

"Yes,  but  I  speak  truth.  You  are  not  good  at 
it.  Flirtation  is  a  crooked  business,  and  you  are 
straight,  mon  amie.  But  wounded  pride  is  not  the 
only  thing  that  has  drawn  us  here  together. 
Something  else  is  responsible.  We  are  both  crav- 
ing for  sympathy.  *A  fellow-feeling,'  you  know! 
I  know  all  about  2/ow,"  he  continued  quickly,  as 
Daphne's  lips  parted.  "  You  are  by  way  of  being 
a  neglected  wife;  and  since  Nina  has  informed  me 
that  she  has  told  you  all  about  me,  I  suppose  you 
regard  me  as  a  bit  of  a  derelict,  too.  Well,  we 
have  foregathered.  What  is  going  to  happen 
next?" 

Daphne  was  silent.  She  certainly  did  not  know 
what  was  going  to  happen  next.  Her  ideas  on  all 
subjects  were  a  little  jumbled  at  this  moment. 

Presently  Carthew  continued. 

"We  came  together,"  he  said  gently,  "just 
when  each  of  us  required  a  little  companionship 


JIM   CARTHEW  239 

and  sympathy,  and  we  got  it.  I  think  our  chance 
encounter  on  the  highway  of  life  has  been  a  very 
profitable  one.  But  it  has  served  its  turn.  Our 
roads  diverge  again.  We  must  part  company, 
little  comrade.*' 

"Why?" 

Daphne  spoke  this  time  in  a  tremulous  whis- 
per. A  great  wave  of  loneliness  was  surging  up 
towards  her. 

"Because,**  said  Carthew*s  deep  voice,  "it  is 
the  only  thing  to  do.  Think  what  may  happen  if 
we  travel  on  together  too  far.  At  present  we  are 
safe.  I  love  some  one  else,  and  so  do  —  and  you 
are  angry  with  some  one  else,  let  us  say.  Suppos- 
ing, since  the  girl  I  love  does  not  love  me  any 
more  —  supposing  I  ceased  to  love  her?  It  seems 
hopeless,  incredible,  I  admit,  but  it  might  con* 
ceivably  happen.  And  supposing  you  gave  up 
being  angry  with  —  some  one  else,  and  became 
indifferent  to  him,  where  might  we  not  find  our- 
selves? Our  sheet-anchor  —  our  platonic  sheet- 
anchor  —  would  be  gone.  And  sooner  than  send 
you  adrift  among  cross-currents,  little  Daphne,  I 
prefer  to  forego  the  only  friendship  in  this  world 
that  I  really  value.  You  are  too  delicate  and  too 
fragrant  to  be  tarnished  by  common  gossip,  so  I 
am  going  away  to-morrow.  Let  us  say  good-bye 
now  —  you  beautiful  thing!" 

Daphne  looked  up  at  him  in  amazement.   But 


240    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

there  was  no  passion  in  his  face  —  only  an  infin- 
ite tenderness.  To  him  she  was  simply  a  woman, 
—  one  of  the  rarest  and  fairest  of  her  sex,  per- 
haps, but  still  simply  a  woman,  —  whom  to  suc- 
cour, without  expectation  or  desire  of  reward, 
was  the  merest  courtesy  on  the  part  of  any 
knight  worthy  of  the  name.  This  was  a  man! 
Daphne  bowed  her  head,  wondering  dimly  and 
scornfully  at  the  insensate  folly  of  Nina  Tallen- 
tyre. 

"Shall  we  go  back  to  the  hotel?"  asked  Car- 
thew  at  length. 

There  was  no  reply.  Turning  to  note  the  cause, 
he  saw  something  bright  and  glistening  fall  upon 
his  companion's  hand  —  then  another.  With 
innate  loyalty  and  delicacy  he  averted  his  gaze, 
and  surveyed  the  distant  seascape  with  laborious 
intentness. 

Meanwhile  Daphne  sat  on,  her  head  still 
bowed.  Through  the  night  air,  from  the  hotel 
verandah,  there  came  the  refrain  of  a  waltz.  It 
was  called  Caressante,  Daphne  thought.  Carthew 
knew  it,  too,  and  dug  his  teeth  into  his  lower  lip. 
Waltzes  have  an  unfortunate  habit  of  reviving 
the  memories  of  yester-year. 

"  Don't  go  in,"  said  Daphne  at  length.  "  Don't 
leave  me;  —  I  can't  bear  it!"  Her  voice  broke. 

Suddenly  Carthew  turned  to  her. 

"Daphne,"  —  his  voice  was  low,  but  he  spoke 


JIM  CARTHEW  241 

with  intense  earnestness,  —  "y°u  are  lonely,  I 
know,  and  sad;  and  you  are  too  proud  to  own  it. 
Shall  I  tell  you  who  is  more  lonely  and  more  sad, 
and  too  proud  to  own  it  too?" 

"Do  you  mean"  —  were  Jim  Carthew's  good 
resolutions  crumbling?  —  "yourself?" 

"No,  no;  —  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  mean  — 
your  husband!"  Then  he  continued,  hurriedly: 
"Daphne,  if  I  thought  I  was  leaving  you  to  real 
loneliness  and  inevitable  wretchedness,  I  —  well, 
perhaps  I  should  n't  go  away  at  all.  But  I  —  I 
am  not  needed.  Little  friend,  you  have  the  fin- 
est husband  in  all  the  world,  waiting  for  you.  For 
all  his  domineering  ways,  he  is  shy,  and  wants 
knowing.  You  have  never  discovered  that.  I 
don't  believe  you  know  him  a  bit.  It  all  comes  of 
having  begun  wrong.  Go  back  and  study  him. 
Give  him  a  fair  chance!  Give  yourself  a  fair 
chance!  You  and  I  have  always  been  friends: 
will  you  promise  me  this  ?  Go  back,  and  give  your- 
self and  Jack  Carr  another  chance." 

Half  an  hour  before,  Daphne  would  have 
smiled  sceptically  and  indulgently  upon  such  a 
suggestion.  But  this  lonely,  loyal  spirit  had 
touched  her.  She  felt  she  would  like  to  please 
him. 

"Very  well,"  she  said.  "I  promise  —  no,  I 
can't!"  The  memory  of  some  ancient  wrong 
suddenly  surged  up  in  her,  swamping  the  gener- 
ous impulse.  "  I  can't  I " 


242    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 


"Why?" 

"Jack  is  so  hard"  she  said.  "Look  at  the  way 
he  treats  those  in  his  power.  His  work-people, 
his—" 

Carthew  laughed,  positively  boisterously. 

"Hard?  Listen,"  he  said,  "and  I  will  tell  you  a 
secret." 

•  ••••*•  •» 

When  he  had  finished,  Daphne  stood  up,  white 
and  gleaming  in  the  moonlight,  and  gave  him  her 
hand. 

"All  right,"  she  said  softly  —  "it's  a  bargain. 
I  go  home  to-morrow." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SOME   ONE   TO   CONFIDE   IN 

CERTAINLY,  matters  were  in  a  serious  state  in 
the  Mirkley  Colliery  District.  The  whole  indus- 
trial world  was  unsettled  at  the  time.  There  had 
been  trouble  on  the  railways,  and  a  great  ship- 
yard strike  was  threatening  in  Scotland.  Most 
serious  of  all,  the  men  were  beginning  to  defy 
their  own  leaders.  They  had  taken  to  organising 
little  sectional  revolts  of  their  own,  and  Employ- 
ers' Federations  were  beginning  to  ask  how  they 
could  be  expected  to  ratify  treaties  with  Trades- 
Union  officials  who  were  unable  to  hold  their  own 
followers  to  the  terms  of  agreements  concluded 
on  their  behalf. 

The  Mirkley  District  had  caught  the  infec- 
tion. The  mischief  had  originated  at  Marble- 
down  and  Cherry  Hill,  the  immediate  cause  of 
the  trouble  being  a  simple  question  of  weights 
and  measures. 

The  ordinary  collier  is  paid  by  piecework  —  so 
much  per  ton  for  all  the  coal  he  hews.  The  coal  is 
carefully  weighed  on  coming  to  the  surface,  and 
to  ensure  fair  play  all  round  the  weight  is  checked 
by  the  men's  own  representative  at  the  pit-head. 


244    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

Now  just  as  all  is  not  gold  that  glitters,  so  all  that 
comes  to  the  surface  of  the  earth  from  the  interior 
of  a  coal-pit  is  not  necessarily  coal.  A  good  deal 
of  it  is  shale,  stone,  and  the  like,  —  technically 
summarised  as  "dirt,"  —  and  has  to  be  sorted 
out  from  the  genuine  article  by  a  bevy  of  young 
ladies  retained  at  some  expense  for  the  purpose. 
As  colliers  are  paid  for  hewing  coal  and  not  dirt, 
the  mine-managers,  reckoning  one  hundred- 
weight as  the  average  weight  of  dirt  in  a  tub  of 
coal,  had  been  in  the  habit,  when  making  out 
their  pay-sheets,  of  deducting  this  amount  from 
the  total  weight  of  each  load  brought  to  the  sur- 
face. Hinc  lacrymce.  The  man  in  the  pit  claimed 
that  he  should  be  paid  for  all  he  sent  up  the  shaft, 
alleging  that  it  was  impossible  to  separate  coal 
from  dirt  at  the  face,  and  that  dirt  was  quite  as 
difficult  to  hew  as  coal.  To  this  those  in  author- 
ity replied  that  a  collier  is  a  man  who  is  employed 
to  hew  coal  and  not  dirt,  and  that  as  such  he 
should  only  be  paid  for  the  coal  he  hewed.  It  was 
a  nice  point,  and  so  high  did  feeling  run  upon  the 
subject,  and  so  fierce  was  the  demeanour  of  their 
employes,  that  pliable  Mr.  Aymar  and  pusillani- 
mous Mr.  Montague  yielded  to  the  extent  of 
fifty-six  pounds,  and  henceforth  each  toiler  in 
Cherry  Hill  and  Marbledown  Colliery  was  deb- 
ited with  one  half  instead  of  one  whole  hundred- 
weight of  dirt  per  tub. 


SOME  ONE  TO  CONFIDE  IN     245 

Encouraged  by  the  success  of  their  colleagues, 
the  men  employed  at  Sir  John  Carr's  great  pit  at 
Belton  proffered  a  similar  request.  But  though 
the  request  was  the  same,  its  recipient  was  differ- 
ent. Sir  John  greeted  the  deputation  with  dis- 
arming courtesy,  and  announced  in  a  manner 
which  precluded  argument  that,  on  the  question 
of  the  owners'  right  to  deduct  for  dirt  in  each 
load,  he  would  not  yield  one  inch.  On  this  the 
deputation  rashly  changed  their  ground  and  al- 
leged that  the  toll  of  one  hundredweight  per  tub 
was  excessive.  Whereupon  Juggernaut  whisked 
them  off  without  delay  to  the  pit-head.  Here  a 
minute  examination  was  made  of  the  contents  of 
the  next  ten  tubs  of  coal  which  came  to  the  sur- 
face, and  it  was  found  that,  so  far  from  defraud- 
ing his  employes,  Juggernaut  was  defrauding  him- 
self, for  the  average  weight  of  dirt  in  each  tub  was 
not  one  hundred  and  twelve,  but  one  hundred 
and  thirty  pounds. 

"You  see,  Mr.  Brash?"  said  Sir  John  cheer- 
fully. "I  am  afraid  you  have  all  been  in  my  debt 
to  the  extent  of  eighteen  pounds  of  coal  per  tub 
for  quite  a  considerable  number  of  years.  How- 
ever, if  you  will  be  sensible  and  go  back  to  work, 
we  will  call  it  a  wash-out  and  say  no  more  about 
it." 

Then  he  departed  to  London. 

But  he  had  to  return.  The  half-hundred  weight 


of  Cherry  Hill  and  Marbledown  outbalanced  Bel- 
ton's  plain  facts  and  ocular  demonstrations.  The 
Pit  "came  out"  en  masse,  against  the  advice  and 
without  the  authority  of  their  Union  officials ;  and 
for  two  or  three  weeks  men  loafed  up  and  down 
the  long  and  unlovely  street  which  comprised 
Belton  Village,  smoking  their  pipes  and  organis- 
ing occasional  whippet-races  against  the  time 
when  the  despot  who  employed  them  should  be 
pleased  to  open  negotiations. 

But  the  despot  made  no  sign.  Presently  pipes 
were  put  away  for  want  of  tobacco,  and  whippet- 
racing  ceased  for  want  of  stake-money.  Then 
came  a  tightening  of  belts  and  a  setting  of  teeth, 
and  men  took  to  sitting  on  their  heels  against 
walls  and  fences,  punctuating  recrimination  by 
expectoration,  through  another  four  long  and  pit- 
iful weeks. 

Not  so  utterly  pitiful,  though.  For  a  wonder- 
ful thing  happened.  The  unknown  benefactor  of 
the  strike  of  seven  years  ago  came  to  life  again. 
Every  morning  the  postman  delivered  to  the  wife 
of  each  man  in  Belton  a  packet  containing  a 
ration  of  tea,  sugar,  and  (once  a  week)  bacon. 
Coal,  too,  was  distributed  by  a  mysterious  mo- 
tor-lorry, bearing  a  London  number-plate  and 
manned  by  two  sardonic  Titans  who  deposited 
their  sacks  and  answered  no  questions.  So  there 
was  no  actual  destitution  in  the  village.  But  there 


SOME  ONE  TO  CONFIDE  IN     247 

was  no  beer  and  no  tobacco  and  no  money.  Wo- 
men and  children  can  live  for  an  amazingly  long 
time  on  tea  and  sugar  eked  out  by  a  little  bread, 
but  man  is  the  slave  of  an  exacting  stomach,  and 
requires  red  meat  for  the  upkeep  of  his  larger 
frame.  The  whippets,  too,  had  to  be  considered; 
and  when,  after  an  interval  of  seven  weeks,  a 
notice  went  up  on  the  gates  of  the  Pit  buildings, 
intimating  that  all  who  returned  to  work  on  the 
following  Monday  would  be  reinstated  without 
question,  Belton  Colliery  put  its  pride  into  its 
empty  pocket  and  came  back  as  one  man. 

But  the  danger  was  not  over  yet,  as  Juggernaut 
well  knew.  For  the  moment  the  men  were  sub- 
dued by  sheer  physical  exhaustion.  The  first 
pay-day  would  fill  their  bellies  and  put  some  red 
blood  into  their  passions.  And  it  was  certain 
information,  received  on  this  head  at  the  Pit 
offices,  that  sent  Sir  John  Carr  home  to  Belton 
Hall  with  knitted  brow  and  tight-set  mouth  one 
wintry  Saturday  afternoon  in  early  April,  a  fort- 
night after  the  men  had  resumed  work. 

He  stepped  out  of  the  automobile  and  walked 
into  the  cheerful  firelit  hall.  He  stood  and  gazed 
reflectively  upon  the  crackling  logs  as  the  butler 
removed  his  heavy  coat.  But  the  removal  of  the 
coat  seemed  to  take  no  weight  from  his  shoul- 
ders. He  felt  utterly  lonely  and  unhappy.  Was 
he  growing  old?  he  wondered.  He  was  not  accus- 


248    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

tomed  to  feel  like  this.  He  did  not  usually 
shrink  from  responsibility,  or  desire  a  shoulder  to 
lean  upon,  but  at  this  moment  he  suddenly  felt 
the  want  of  some  one  to  consult.  No,  consult  was 
not  the  word !  He  could  have  consulted  Carthew. 
In  fact,  he  had  just  done  so,  for  Carthew  had  re- 
turned from  his  holiday  two  days  before.  What 
he  wanted  was  some  one  to  confide  in.  With  a  sud- 
den tightening  of  the  heart  he  thought  of  a  confi- 
dante who  might  have  been  at  his  side  then,  had 
things  been  different  —  a  confidante  who  would 
have  sat  upon  the  arm  of  .his  chair  and  bidden 
him  play  the  man  and  fear  nothing.  Well,  doubt- 
less he  would  play  the  man  and  fear  nothing,  and 
doubtless  he  would  win  again  as  he  had  done 
before.  But  —  cui  bono  ?  What  doth  it  profit  a 
man  —  ? 

He  wondered  where  she  was.  Yachting  on  the 
Mediterranean,  or  frivolling  on  the  Riviera.  Or 
perhaps  she  was  back  in  London  by  this  time, 
ordering  her  spring  clothes  and  preparing  for  an- 
other butterfly  season.  At  any  rate,  she  was  not 
at  Belton  Hall.  Whose  fault  was  that?  .  .  . 

Had  he  been  lacking  in  patience  with  her?  Had 
he  treated  her  too  much  like  a  refractory  board- 
meeting?  ...  A  little  fool?  Doubtless;  but 
then,  so  were  most  women.  And  she  was  very 
young,  after  all.  .  .  . 

"Will  you  take  anything  before  dinner,  sir?" 


SOME  ONE  TO  CONFIDE  IN     249 

enquired  a  respectful  voice  in  his  ear.  "Tea? 
Whiskey  and  — " 

"No,  thank  you,  Graves.  Is  Master  Brian  in 
the  nursery?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"I  will  go  up  shortly  and  say  good-night  to 
him.  Meanwhile  I  shall  be  in  the  study  if  Mr. 
Carthew  or  any  one  calls  for  me.  But  I  don't 
want  to  be  disturbed  at  present." 

A  minute  later  he  opened  the  door  of  the  apart- 
ment, half-library,  half -smoking-room,  which  he 
called  his  study.  It  was  in  darkness,  but  for  the 
cheerful  glow  of  the  fire. 

As  Juggernaut  closed  the  door  behind  him,  and 
felt  for  the  electric-light  switch,  there  came  a 
rustling  from  the  depths  of  a  great  oak  settle 
which  formed  a  right  angle  with  the  projecting 
mantelpiece,  and  a  slim  straight  figure  stood  sud- 
denly upright,  silhouetted  against  the  ruddy 
glare. 

"Daphne!" 

"Yes  —  me!"  replied  an  extremely  small 
voice. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   LIGHTING   OF   THE   CANDLE 

THERE  is  no  more  disagreeable  sensation  in 
this  world  than  that  furnished  by  a  sudden  en- 
counter with  some  one  with  whom  we  are  on 
"awkward"  terms.  Most  people  know  what  it  is 
to  cross  the  street  to  avoid  an  old  friend,  or  to 
dodge  into  a  shop  in  order  to  escape  the  necessity 
of  inflicting  or  receiving  the  cut  direct.  Very 
often  the  origin  of  the  quarrel  has  been  forgotten 
or  has  ceased  to  be  of  real  moment,  but  the  awk- 
wardness endures.  Oftener  still,  a  reconciliation 
would  be  welcomed  on  both  sides,  but  pride,  pride, 
pride  intervenes. 

Now  the  best  solvent  of  stubborn  obstinacy  is 
a  sense  of  humour.  As  Juggernaut  stood  in  the 
darkness,  surveying  the  embarrassed  little  figure 
before  him,  —  in  his  eyes  Daphne,  five  feet  seven 
in  her  stockings,  was  always  "little,*'  —  and 
feeling  acutely  conscious  on  his  part  of  an  almost 
irresistible  desire  to  shuffle  with  his  feet,  he  sud- 
denly and  most  providentially  broke  into  one  of 
his  rare  laughs  —  a  laugh  of  quiet  and  unforced 
enjoyment. 


THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE    251 

Apparently  this  was  not  quite  what  Daphne 
expected. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  she  enquired.  Her 
voice  quavered  pathetically,  for  she  was  highly 
wrought. 

"I  could  n't  help  thinking,"  said  her  husband, 
"of  an  episode  in  the  history  of  two  old  friends 
of  mine.  They  had  been  engaged  for  about  three 
months,  when  they  quarrelled  —  severely.  They 
parted  company  forever,  and  whenever  he  or  she 
saw  the  other  upon  the  horizon,  he  or  she  fled. 
However,  after  about  six  weeks  of  this  sort  of 
thing,  they  were  taken  by  surprise.  One  day  the 
man  saw  the  girl  advancing  straight  upon  him 
down  the  street,  quite  oblivious  of  his  proximity. 
He  dived  into  the  nearest  shop,  which  happened 
to  be  a  baby-linen  establishment — " 

Daphne  gave  a  sudden  gurgle  of  laughter. 

"  —  And  when  the  girl  walked  in,  two  minutes 
later,"  concluded  Juggernaut,  "to  match  some 
silk,  she  found  her  late  beloved  diligently  sam- 
pling Berlin  wool.  That  did  it!  The  sense  of 
humour  of  that  young  couple  came  to  their 
rescue,  Daphne,  and  they  walked  out  of  the  shop 
hand-in-hand,  not  caring  a  dump  for  anybody. 
To  my  knowledge  they  have  never  had  a  quarrel 
since.  You  see  now  why  I  laughed  just  now?" 

Daphne  sighed  comfortably. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  The  tension  of  the  situation 


252    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

was  relaxed.  "  I  want  to  —  to  talk  to  you,  Jack," 
she  continued,  suddenly  heartened. 

"  Certainly,"  replied  Juggernaut,  with  a  slight 
return  of  his  board-room  air.  "I'll  turn  the  light 
on." 

"Please  don't,"  said  Daphne  hastily.  "I 
would  rather  talk  in  the  dark.  Will  you  sit  down 
on  the  settle?" 

Juggernaut  obeyed  silently.  The  firelight 
played  upon  his  face,  showing  the  clear-cut  lines 
of  his  mouth  and  his  tired  eyes.  Daphne  stood 
erect  before  him,  keeping  her  face  in  the  shadow. 
She  had  removed  her  hat  and  furs,  and  her  thick 
hair  caught  the  light  fantastically. 

"Jack,"  she  began,  industriously  scrutinising 
the  vista  of  the  room  reflected  by  an  ancient  con- 
vex mirror  hanging  on  the  opposite  wall,  "I  want 
to  say  something.  I  want  to  say  that  I  am  sorry. 
I  have  done  you  an  injustice.  I  always  thought 
you  were  a  hard  man,  and  I  have  discovered  that 
you  are  not.  In  fact,"  she  continued  with  a 
flicker  of  a  smile,  "  I  have  found  out  that  you  are 
very  much  the  other  thing."  She  paused. 

"May  I  ask  for  chapter  and  verse?"  said  Jug- 
gernaut. 

"Yes!"  The  old  Daphne  flashed  forth.  "Here 
are  you,  fighting  all  these  men  with  one  hand, 
giving  no  quarter,  and  so  forth,"  -  Juggernaut 
stirred  suddenly  in  his  seat,  —  "  and  feeding  the 


THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE    253 

women  and  children  with  the  other!  Are  n't  you, 
now?"  She  pointed  an  accusing  finger. 

"  Since  you  tax  me  with  it  —  yes,"  said  her 
husband. 

Daphne  turned  upon  him  impulsively,  with 
the  firelight  full  on  her  face. 

"Jack,"  she  said  softly,  "it  was  splendid  of 
you!" 

He  looked  up  and  saw  that  her  eyes  were  glow- 
ing. She  came  a  step  nearer,  and  her  head  drooped 
prettily. 

"And  I'm  sorry  if  I  have  been  unfair  to  you, 
Jack,"  she  continued.  "I  —  I  thought  you  were 
just  a  feelingless  sort  of  man,  whose  work  was  his 
world,  and  who  cared  for  nothing  but  himself  and 
what  he  had  in  view,  and  regarded  women  as 
merely  useful  things  to  keep  house,  and  have 
babies,  and  so  on.  But  now  I  know  that  I  was 
wrong.  There  is  more  of  you  than  that.  Being 
me,  I  had  to  tell  you." 

She  ended  with  a  little  catch  in  her  voice.  She 
had  made  her  effort.  She  had  humbled  herself, 
and  in  so  doing  she  had  laid  herself  open  to  the 
cruellest  of  rebuffs.  She  waited  tremulously.  A 
hard  word,  a  scornful  smile,  even  silence  now  — 
and  two  lives  would  fall  asunder  for  ever. 

But  the  wheels  of  Juggernaut  had  never  passed 
over  a  woman. 

"Will  you  sit  down?"  said  Sir  John  gently. 


254    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

He  made  room  for  her,  and  she  sank  down 
beside  him,  leaning  her  head  against  the  high 
back  of  the  settle  and  gazing  unwinkingly  into 
the  fire.  She  was  conscious  now  that  this  man 
was  overflowing  with  tenderness  towards  her,  but 
she  would  not  look  him  in  the  face  yet. 

"How  did  you  find  out  about  the  rations  to  the 
women?"  he  enquired  presently. 

Daphne  told  him. 

"But  you  must  n't  blame  Jim  Carthew,"  she 
said  in  conclusion.  "He  simply  had  to  tell  me." 

"When  did  you  see  him?" 

"Last  week,  in  Algiers.  In  fact,  he  brought  me 
home;  but  I  made  him  promise  not  to  tell  you 
I  was  in  London.  He  is  a  good  sort!"  she  added 
irrelevantly. 

"In  what  way?"  asked  her  husband  curi- 
ously. 

Daphne  turned  and  surveyed  him. 

"Would  you  be  angry  if  I  told  you  —  jealous, 
I  mean?" 

"What  right  have  I  to  be  angry  or  jealous?" 
said  Juggernaut  simply.  "In  what  way,"  he  re- 
peated, "  has  Carthew  been  showing  that  he  is  a 
good  sort?" 

"  Well,  in  bringing  me  his  troubles.  That  always 
makes  a  conquest  of  any  woman,  you  know.  And 
in  letting  me  take  my  troubles  to  him.  A  woman 
always  has  to  take  a  trouble  to  a  man,  Jack,  when 


THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE    255 

all  is  said  and  done  —  even  if  he  is  only  the  fam- 
ily solicitor!"  she  concluded  lightly. 

She  had  suddenly  skated  on  to  thin  ice,  and 
she  knew  it.  The  man  to  whom  she  should  have 
taken  her  troubles  had  not  been  there  to  receive 
them. 

"  So  Jim  Carthew  has  his  troubles  like  the  rest 
of  us?"  said  Juggernaut. 

"  Yes;  and  I  never  suspected  how  he  felt  about 
them,"  said  Daphne.  "He  is  fearfully  reserved 
about  the  things  he  really  feels,  although  he  bab- 
bles enough  about  the  things  he  does  n't.  So, 
when  I  was  in  trouble  —  " 

"What  was  your  trouble?" 

"I  was  lonely,"  said  the  girl. 

Juggernaut  drew  his  breath  sharply. 

"I  am  glad  you  had  some  one  to  be  kind  to 
you,"  he  said. 

Then  came  a  long  pause  —  a  sort  of  pause 
which  either  brings  a  discussion  to  an  end  or 
begets  another,  longer  and  more  intimate.  We  all 
know  them. 

Finally  Daphne  braced  herself. 

"Jack,"  she  said,  "I  want  to  say  something 
more.  I  did  n't  mean  to:  I  have  said  all  I  came 
here  to  say.  But  I  must  say  this,  too,  —  now  or 
never.  I  —  I  —  I  was  wrong  to  marry  you,  Jack. 
I  did  n't  love  you,  but  I  thought  it  did  n't  mat- 
ter. I  felt  how  divine  it  would  be  to  be  able  to 


256    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

help  the  boys  and  Dad.  That  was  all  I  consid- 
ered. Then,  when  I  began  to  go  about,  and  meet 
new  people,  and  make  comparisons,  I  —  I  found 
myself  criticising  you  !  Me  —  you!" 

"I  wouldn't  be  too  indignant  about  it  if  I 
were  you,"  said  her  husband. 

He  reached  out  deliberately  for  her  hand,  and 
continued  his  contemplation  of  the  fire. 

"Go  on,'*  he  said. 

Daphne,  foolishly  uplifted,  continued:  — 

"I  used  to  think  you  rough  and  hard  and  un- 
sympathetic. I  began  to  prefer  the  men  who 
buzzed  round  and  murmured  things  in  my  ear. 
And  when  people  began  to  pity  me  as  a  neglected 
wife,  I — I  encouraged  them.  I  let  women  say 
catty  things  about  you,  and  I  let  men  make  love 
to  me.  That  sort  of  thing  has  been  going  on  ever 
since  the  time"  —  Daphne's  grip  of  her  hus- 
band's hand  tightened  —  "when  you  and  I  de- 
cided —  to  go  our  own  ways.  I  don't  mind  tell- 
ing you  now  that  it  was  a  pill  for  me,  Jack!  My 
pride  —  " 

"It  was  a  brutal  act  on  my  part,"  blazed  out 
Juggernaut,  with  sudden  passion. 

"No  it  wasn't:  it  was  what  I  deserved!"  in- 
sisted Daphne,  whose  nature  did  not  permit  her 
to  be  repentant  by  halves.  "  Well,  anyhow,  I  de- 
termined to  flirt  in  real  earnest  now.  So  I  began 
to  carry  on,  in  an  experimental  fashion.  But  I 


THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE    257 

can't  say  it  was  much  fun.  Finally,  I  did  fall  in 
love  with  a  man,  in  a  sort  of  way,  —  don't  hurt 
my  hand,  dear;  it  was  only  in  a  sort  of  way,  — • 
and  I  let  him  see  it.  Well,  I  got  a  facer  over  him. 
One  night,  under  the  moon,  I  tried  to  flirt  with 
him;  and  he  —  well,  Jack,  he  fairly  put  me  in  my 
place!" 

"What  did  he  do?" 

"He  made  me  feel  ashamed  of  myself." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"Not  much  that  we  need  talk  of  now,  except 
one  thing." 

"What  was  that?" 

"He  told  me  to  go  back  to  you." 

"Why?" 

"Because  he  said"  —  Daphne's  voice  dropped 
low  —  "that  you  loved  me." 

There  was  a  long  silence,  until  a  live  coal  sub- 
sided in  the  grate.  Presently  Juggernaut  said: — 

"It  was  Carthew,  I  suppose." 

Daphne  nodded. 

"Jack,"  she  said,  "Jim  Carthew  is  the  best 
friend  that  you  and  I  possess." 

"I  know  it." 

They  were  silent  again,  until  irrelevant  Daphne 
enquired  suddenly:  — 

"Jack,  what  made  you  do  that  unpractical 
thing?  The  tea  and  sugar,  I  mean.  It  was  only 
prolonging  the  strike;  even  /  can  see  that." 


258    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"It  didn't  prolong  the  strike  to  any  particular 
extent,'*  said  Juggernaut  with  decision.  "Not 
that  I  care,"  he  added  with  unusual  inconse- 
quence, "if  it  did.  It  made  things  no  easier  for 
the  men ;  and  it  is  with  the  men  that  the  decision 
lies  in  cases  of  this  kind." 

"But  it  was  so  unlike  you,"  persisted  Daphne. 

Her  husband  turned  and  regarded  her  quizzi- 
cally. 

"Was  it?"  he  said,  smiling.  "We  all  have  our 
weaknesses,"  he  added.  "Mine  are  women  and 
children.  I  think,"  he  went  on  with  great  delib- 
eration, "that  there  is  only  one  woman  in  this 
wide  world  who  has  ever  suffered  ill  at  my  hand." 

"And  she  is— " 

"My  wife!  Listen,"  he  continued  rapidly, 
"while  I  make  confession.  You  have  spoken  your 
piece  bravely,  little  Daphne.  Now  hear  me  mine." 

He  rose  in  his  turn,  and  stood  before  his  wife. 

"I  never  knew  or  cared  very  much  about  wo- 
men," he  said.  "I  do  not  remember  my  mother, 
and  I  had  no  sisters,  which  probably  accounts  for 
a  good  deal.  Also,  I  was  brought  up  by  a  man 
among  men,  and  I  learned  to  read  men  and  han- 
dle men  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else.  I  was  given 
to  understand  that  women  did  not  matter.  I  was 
trained  to  regard  them  as  a  sort  of  inferior  and 
unreliable  variety  of  the  male  sex.  So  I  confined 
my  dealings  to  men,  and  I  found  so  much  joy  in 


THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE     259 

handling  and  mastering  men  that  my  eyes  became 
closed  to  the  fact  that  life  could  offer  me  any- 
thing else." 

"But  didn't  you  miss  female  society?  Most 
men  can't  get  on  without  some"  said  experienced 
Daphne. 

"  You  can't  miss  what  you  have  never  had,  lit- 
tle girl.  Perhaps  if  I  had  encountered  female 
society  early  in  life  — " 

"But  did  n't  you  sometimes  instinctively  long 
for  a  woman  to  come  and  take  charge  of  you? 
Most  men  are  so  helpless  and  messy  by  them- 
selves." 

"Sometimes,"  admitted  Juggernaut,  almost 
reluctantly,  "I  did.  But  I  put  the  notion  from 
me." 

"Shall  I  tell  you  why?"  asked  Daphne  quietly. 

"I  suppose  it  was  because  I  didn't  want  to 
yield  to  a  weakness  — " 

"It  was  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  Daphne 
with  immense  decision.  "It  was  because  you 
were  afraid!" 

"Afraid?" 

"Yes  —  afraid !  You  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  women,  because,  you  told  yourself,  you 
despised  them.  We  were  a  waste  of  time,  you 
said  an  encumbrance!  The  real  reason  was  that 
you  feared  us.  Yes  —  feared !  Success  was  the 
breath  of  life  to  you.  You  had  always  had  your 


260    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

own  way  wherever  you  went.  You  were  the  great 
Sir  John  Carr  —  the  strong  man  —  Juggernaut ! 
You  had  never  been  beaten.  Why?  Because  you 
had  never  had  the  pluck  to  try  conclusions  with  a 
woman.  Your  excuse  was  that  you  were  a  wo- 
man-hater, when  all  the  time  you  were  a  woman- 
lover.  You  have  just  admitted  it,  impostor!  You 
were  afraid  that,  where  every  man  had  failed  to 
turn  you  from  your  own  hard,  selfish  way  of  life, 
a  woman  might  succeed.  And  so  you  ran  away, 
and  you  have  been  running  ever  since.  There, 
my  strong  man,  there's  the  truth  for  you!" 

For  once  in  his  life  Sir  John  Carr,  the  terror  of 
deputations,  the  scourge  of  unsound  logicians,  the 
respectfully  avoided  of  hecklers,  had  no  answer 
ready.  The  reason  was  obvious:  no  answer  was 
possible.  The  victory  lay  with  Daphne.  She 
leaned  back  in  the  settle  and  looked  fearlessly  up 
into  her  husband's  face.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life  she  felt  maternal  towards  this  man,  — 
twenty-two  years  her  senior,  —  just  as  old  Mrs. 
Carfrae  had  predicted.  She  was  utterly  and  abso- 
lutely happy,  too,  for  she  had  just  realized  that 
she  and  her  husband  had  come  together  at  last. 
They  were  one  flesh.  The  time  for  tactful  di- 
plomacy and  mutual  accommodation  and  making 
allowances  was  overpast.  No  need  now  to  guard 
the  flame  from  rude  winds  and  cross-currents. 
The  candle  was  safely  lighted,  and,  please  God, 


THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE    261 

it  should  burn  steadily  to  its  socket.  The  Safety 
Match  had  accomplished  its  task  after  all. 

Then  she  gave  a  happy  little  sigh,  for  her  hus- 
band's great  arm  was  around  her  shoulders. 

"All  my  life,  Daphne,"  said  his  deep  voice,  "I 
have  thought  that  the  sweetest  thing  in  this 
world  was  victory.  Now  I  have  just  received  my 
first  defeat,  —  you  routed  me,  hip  and  thigh,  — 
and  I  am  happier  than  I  have  ever  been.  Why?  " 

"Think!"  commanded  a  muffled  voice  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  his  waistcoat. 

Juggernaut  obeyed.  Then  he  continued,  and 
his  grip  round  Daphne  grew  stronger:  — 

"  I  think  I  see.  I  married  you  because  I  wanted 
some  one  to  keep  my  house  in  order  and  bear  me 
a  son.  (That  point  of  view  did  not  endure  long, 
I  may  say,  for  I  fell  in  love  with  you  on  our  hon- 
eymoon, and  I  have  loved  you  ever  since;  but  it 
was  my  point  of  view  when  I  asked  you  to  marry 
me.)  I  thought  then  that  it  would  be  a  fair  bar- 
gain if  I  gave  you  money  and  position  in  return 
for  these  things.  We  could  not  help  living  con- 
tentedly together,  I  considered,  under  the  terms 
of  such  a  logical  and  businesslike  contract  as  this. 
Well,  I  did  not  know  then,  what  I  know  now, 
that  logic  and  business  are  utterly  valueless  as  a 
foundation  for  any  contract  between  a  man  and  a 
woman.  The  only  thing  that  is  the  slightest  use 
for  the  purpose  is  the  most  illogical  and  unbusi- 


262    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

nesslike  thing  in  the  whole  wide  world.  And  "  — 
his  iron  features  relaxed  into  a  smile  of  rare 
sweetness  —  "I  believe,  I  believe,  mia  cara,  that 
you  and  I  have  found  that  thing  —  together." 
His  voice  dropped  lower.  "Have  we,  Daphne,  — 
my  wife?" 

Daphne  raised  her  head,  and  looked  her  man 
full  in  the  face. 

"  We  have  found  it,  O  my  husband,"  she  said 
gravely  — "at  last!" 

The  door  flew  open  suddenly.  There  was  a 
gleam  of  electric  light.  Graves,  the  imperturb- 
able butler,  inclined  respectfully  before  them. 

"You  are  wanted  outside,  sir,"  he  said  — 
"badly!" 


CHAPTER  XVin 

ATHANASIUS   CONTRA   MUNDUM 

A  CONFUSED  medley  of  men  and  women  —  not 
to  mention  the  inevitable  small  boy  element  — 
was  pouring  up  the  road  from  Belton  Pit  in  the 
direction  of  the  Hall,  which  lay  beyond  the  brow 
of  the  hill  in  a  green  hollow  as  yet  unsullied  by 
winding-wheels  and  waste-heaps.  People  who 
have  made  up  their  minds  to  do  evil  are  usually 
in  a  hurry  to  get  it  over.  Consequently  our 
friends  were  advancing  at  a  high  rate  of  speed, 
keeping  up  their  courage  by  giving  forth  un- 
melodious  noises. 

Juggernaut's  prophecy  had  come  true.  The  re- 
bellion had  been  damped  down  by  sheer  starva- 
tion; and  now  that  starvation  was  overpast,  the 
rebellion  was  flaming  out  again  with  tenfold 
vigour.  That  fine  unreasoning  human  instinct 
which  under  a  certain  degree  of  pressure  bids 
logic  and  argument  go  hang,  and  impels  us  to  go 
forth  and  break  some  one  else's  windows,  held 
the  reins  that  evening.  As  the  night-shift  assem- 
bled at  the  pit-head,  what  time  the  day-shift  was 
being  disgorged,  a  cageful  at  a  time,  from  the 
depths  below,  a  great  and  magnificent  project 


264    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

suddenly  hatched  itself  in  the  fertile  brain  of  a 
certain  Mr.  Tom  Winch,  who  had  been  haunting 
the  neighbourhood  on  business  connected  with  the 
propaganda  of  his  own  particular  revolutionary 
organisation  for  the  past  six  weeks.  Now  was  his 
chance.  Evil  passions,  hitherto  dimmed  by  hunger 
and  privation,  were  reviving.  The  men  were  ripe 
for  any  mischief.  What  they  were  asking  for,  re- 
flected Mr.  Winch,  was  blood,  or  its  equivalent, 
and  a  man  to  lead  them  to  it. 

Mr.  Winch  was,  to  do  him  justice,  a  master  of 
his  own  furtive  trade.  In  five  minutes  his  pro- 
ject was  circulating  through  the  throng.  In  fif- 
teen, the  crowd  had  pledged  itself  to  do  something 
really  big;  and  in  half  an  hour,  most  of  the  win- 
dows of  the  pit-offices  had  been  broken  as  a  guar- 
anty of  good  faith. 

Having  whetted  its  appetite  on  this  hors 
d'ceuvre,  the  mob  listened  readily  to  Mr.  Winch's 
suggestion  of  a  brisk  walk  to  Belton  Hall  and  a 
personal  interview  with  its  proprietor.  The  notion 
ran  through  the  excited  mass  of  humanity  like 
fire  through  dry  grass;  and  presently,  as  if  from 
one  spontaneous  impulse,  the  advance  on  Belton 
Hall  began.  No  one  quite  knew  what  he  pro- 
posed to  do  when  he  got  there,  but  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  expedition  were  great.  It  was  a  pictur- 
esque procession,  for  every  man  carried  a  safety- 
lamp  in  one  hand  and  a  missile  in  the  other.  It 


ATHANASIUS  CONTRA  MUNDUM    265 

was  probably  owing  to  the  multiplicity  of  the 
twinkling  points  of  light  thus  produced  that  no 
one  observed  the  flickering  halo  of  a  solitary  bi- 
cycle-lamp, as  a  machine  which  bore  it  slipped  out 
from  the  side  door  of  the  pit-offices  and  silently 
stole  away  through  the  darkness,  carrying  a 
frightened  messenger  over  the  hill  to  Belton  Hall. 

It  may  here  be  noted  that  Mr.  Tom  Winch, 
having  despatched  his  avenging  host  upon  its 
way,  remained  behind  at  headquarters  —  doubt- 
less to  superintend  the  subsequent  operations 
with  that  degree  of  perspective  which  is  so  neces- 
sary to  a  good  general. 

Mr.  Killick,  an  old  acquaintance  of  ours,  sup- 
ported by  his  friend  Mr.  Brash,  led  the  proces- 
sion. 

"  Supposin'  the  lodge  gates  is  locked  —  what 
then?"  enquired  Mr.  Brash  —  even  a  better 
critic  than  creator  of  an  enterprise  —  as  they 
trudged  along  the  muddy  road. 

"We  shall  trample  them  down,"  replied  Mr. 
Killick,  ever  contemptuous  of  irritating  detail. 

But  the  lodge  gates  stood  hospitably  open. 
The  lodge  itself  was  shuttered  and  silent;  and  the 
procession,  pausing  momentarily  to  deliver  a  hi- 
larious and  irregular  volley  of  small  coal,  pro- 
ceeded on  its  way. 

Up  the  long  avenue  they  tramped.  There  were 
electric  lamps  at  intervals,  intended  for  the  guid- 


266    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

ance  of  strange  coachmen  on  dinner-party  nights. 
These  were  all  ablaze.  Evidently  Juggernaut  was 
expecting  friends.  Five  minutes  later  our  glo- 
rious company  of  apostles  rounded  the  last  turn 
in  the  avenue,  and  the  broad  Elizabethan  fagade 
of  Belton  Hall  loomed  up  before  them.  Every 
window  was  alight. 

A  flagged  and  balustraded  terrace  ran  along 
the  whole  frontage  of  the  Hall.  In  the  middle  of 
the  balustrade  was  a  gap,  where  a  broad  flight  of 
shallow  stone  steps  led  down  to  a  velvety  lawn 
three  hundred  years  old.  Most  of  the  crowd 
knew  that  lawn  and  terrace  well.  The  grounds  at 
Belton  were  constantly  and  freely  granted  for 
miners'  fetes,  political  demonstrations,  and  the 
like.  On  these  occasions  a  band  was  nearly  always 
playing  upon  the  terrace,  and  not  infrequently 
post-prandial  orations  were  outpoured  from  the 
rostrum  formed  by  the  stone  steps  upon  the  heads 
of  a  gorged  and  tolerant  audience  on  the  grass 
below. 

To-night  no  band  was  playing;  but  at  the  head 
of  the  steps  —  motionless,  upright,  inflexible  - 
stood  a  solitary  figure.   It  was  the  master  of  the 
house,  waiting  to  receive  his  guests — one  against 
four  hundred. 

But  to  one  who  knew,  the  odds  were  not  over- 
whelming. In  fact,  provided  that  the  crowd  pos- 
sessed no  resolute  leader,  the  chances  were 


ATHANASIUS  CONTRA   MUNDUM    267 

slightly  in  favour  of  the  figure  on  the  steps.  One 
man  with  his  wits  about  him  has  two  great  advan- 
tages over  a  crowd.  In  the  first  place  he  knows 
exactly  what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  in  the  second 
he  knows  exactly  what  the  crowd  is  going  to  do. 
The  crowd  knows  neither.  It  is  impossible  to 
foretell  how  a  single  individual  will  behave  upon 
emergency:  the  human  temperament  varies  too 
widely.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  so 
normal  or  conventional  as  a  crowd.  Mankind  in 
the  lump  is  a  mere  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the  law 
of  averages.  Given,  as  noted  above,  a  resolute 
leader,  and  the  conditions  are  changed.  The 
leader  imbues  the  crowd  with  a  portion  of  his 
own  spirit,  and  creates  an  instinct  of  unanimity. 
Then  the  odds  are  once  more  in  favour  of  the 
crowd;  for  now  it  is  a  resolute  will,  all  alone, 
pitted  against  a  resolute  will  with  force  behind  it. 

Sir  John  Carr  knew  all  this.  He  had  studied 
men  all  his  life ;  and  as  he  stood  silent  and  observ- 
ant, surveying  the  surging  multitude  at  his  feet, 
—  it  had  flowed  to  the  very  base  of  the  steps  now, 
— he  noted  that  there  was  no  leader  in  particular. 
The  crowd  was  acting  under  the  influence  of 
blind  impulse,  and  if  properly  handled  could  be 
swayed  about  and  sent  home. 

Presently  the  hubbub  ceased,  and  the  men 
stood  gazing  upward,  fingering  lumps  of  coal  and 
waiting  for  some  one  to  fire  the  first  shot. 


268    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"Good-evening,  ladies  and  gentlemen,"  ob- 
served Juggernaut.  (The  ladies,  be  it  noted,  con- 
stituted the  front  row  of  the  assemblage,  their 
cavaliers  having  modestly  retired  a  few  paces  un- 
der their  employer's  passionless  scrutiny.)  "If 
you  have  come  to  serenade  me,  I  shall  have  pleas- 
ure presently  in  sending  you  out  some  refresh- 
ments. If  you  have  merely  come  to  burn  the 
house  down,  I  strongly  advise  you  to  go  home 
and  think  twice  about  it." 

The  recipients  of  this  piece  of  advice  were  un- 
doubtedly a  little  taken  aback.  Playful  badinage 
was  the  last  thing  they  had  expected.  They  mur- 
mured uneasily  to  one  another,  debating  suitable 
retorts.  Presently  a  shrill  female  voice  opened 
fire. 

"Tyrant!" 

"  Money-grubber ! "  corroborated  another  voice. 

"Who  starves  women  and  children?"  shrieked 
a  third. 

"  Yah !  Booh ! "  roared  the  crowd,  taking  heart. 

"  Chuck  some  of  his  own  coals  at  'im ! "  was  the 
frantic  adjuration  of  a  foolish  virgin  who  had  al- 
ready expended  all  her  ammunition  against  the 
shutters  of  the  gate  lodge. 

A  lump  of  something  black  and  crystalline 
sang  past  Juggernaut's  head,  and  struck  a  richly 
glowing  stained  glass  window  twenty  feet  behind 
him.  There  was  a  sharp  crash  and  a  silvery  tin- 


ATHAXASIUS  CONTRA  MUNDUM    269 

kle,  followed  by  a  little  gasp  from  the  crowd.  The 
first  shot  had  been  fired.  Juggernaut  knew  well 
that  a  broadside  was  imminent,  and  countered 
swiftly.  In  the  startled  silence  which  succeeded 
the  destruction  of  the  great  window,  —  it  had 
lighted  the  staircase  at  Belton  for  generations,  — 
his  voice  rang  out  like  a  trumpet. 

"Listen  to  me!"  he  cried.  "You  have  a  griev- 
ance. You  have  come  up  here  to  square  accounts 
with  me.  You  think  you  have  right  on  your 
side:  I  think  it  is  on  mine.  Both  of  us  are  spoil- 
ing for  a  fight.  In  our  present  frame  of  mind  no- 
thing else  will  satisfy  us.  Now  here  is  a  fair 
offer.  Send  up  any  two  men  you  like  out  of  that 
multitude  down  there,  and  I  will  take  them  on, 
both  together  or  one  after  the  other,  as  you  please. 
I  am  rising  forty-seven,  but  if  I  fail  to  drop  either 
of  your  representatives  over  this  balustrade,  back 
where  he  came  from,  inside  of  five  minutes,  I 
promise  to  remit  the  dues  on  that  odd  hundred- 
weight that  you  are  making  all  this  to-do  about. 
Is  it  a  bargain,  gentlemen?" 

He  had  struck  the  right  note.  The  low  angry 
murmuring  suddenly  ceased,  and  a  great  wave  of 
Homeric  laughter  rolled  over  the  crowd.  The 
British  collier  has  his  faults,  but  within  his  limits 
he  is  a  sportsman.  He  appreciates  pluck. 

"Good  lad!"  roared  a  voice  out  of  the  dark- 
ness. Then  there  fell  another  silence. 


270    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"I  am  waiting,  gentlemen,"  said  Juggernaut 
presently. 

But  he  had  to  continue  waiting.  His  audience, 
as  previously  noted,  were  sportsmen  within  lim- 
its. The  limits,  alas!  in  these  soft  days  are  too 
often  rabbit-coursing,  or  the  backing  of  a  horse  in 
a  race  which  will  not  be  witnessed  by  the  backer. 
It  is  always  gratifying  to  be  invited  to  participate 
in  a  sporting  event,  but  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween a  seat  on  the  platform  and  a  place  in  the 
arena.  Getting  hurt  gratuitously  is  slipping  into 
the  Index  Expurgatorius  of  modern  field  sports. 

Men  began  to  look  sheepishly  at  one  another. 
One  or  two  had  started  forward  instinctively, 
but  the  impulse  died  away.  A  humourist  was 
heard  imploring  his  friends  to  hold  him  back. 
There  was  something  unutterably  grim  about 
the  towering  figure  up  on  the  terrace.  Demo- 
cracy and  the  equality  of  mankind  to  the  con- 
trary, Jack  usually  recognises  his  master  when  it 
comes  to  a  pinch.  No  Jack  seemed  to  desire  ad- 
vancement on  this  occasion. 

Juggernaut  waited  for  another  minute.  He 
wanted  the  silence  to  sink  in.  He  wanted  the 
crowd  to  feel  ridiculous.  That  object  achieved, 
he  proposed  to  turn  his  visitors  to  the  rightabout 
and  send  them  home.  He  had  been  through  this 
experience  before,  and  felt  comparatively  sure  of 
his  ground. 


ATHANASIUS  CONTRA  MUNDUM    271 

Provided,  that  is,  that  one  thing  did  not  occur. 
There  were  women  present. 

Now  women  are  exempt  from  the  law  of  aver- 
ages; the  sex  snaps  its  fingers  at  computations 
based  upon  laboriously  compiled  statistics.  If 
the  women  —  or  more  likely  a  woman  —  gave 
the  men  a  lead,  anything  might  happen.  And 
just  as  Juggernaut  uplifted  his  voice  to  pro- 
nounce a  valediction,  the  disaster  befel. 

"Now  go  home,"  he  began.  "You  are  not 
yourselves  to-night.  Go  home,  and  think  things 
over.  Consult  the  older  men.  I  see  none  of  them 
here.  If  you  are  of  the  same  mind  to-morrow,  I 
promise  to  —  " 

"Call  yourselves  men?  Cowards!  cowards! 
cowards!  One  of  us  is  worth  the  lot  of  you!" 

A  woman,  with  a  shawl  over  her  head  and  a 
child  in  her  arms,  had  mounted  halfway  up  the 
steps,  and  was  addressing  the  mob  below.  Sir 
John  recognised  her  as  Mrs.  Brash,  a  quiet  little 
person  as  a  rule. 

"Come  up,  chaps!"  she  shrieked.  "Are  you 
going  to  let  him  stamp  on  us  all?  Look  at  his 
fine  house,  and  his  electrics,  and  his  marble 
steps  and  all ! "  (They  were  plain  freestone, 
but  let  that  pass.)  "Where  did  he  get  'em  all? 
From  us! — us  that  he  has  starved  and  clemmed 
this  last  two  months!  Are  you  afraid  of  him  — 
the  lot  of  you?  Great  hulking  cowards!  I  see 


272    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

you,  Brash,  hiding  there !  Is  n't  there  one  man 
here?" 

"Yes  —  by  God,  there  is!" 

With  a  bound  Killick,  the  brooding  visionary, 
the  Utopian  Socialist,  was  at  the  top  of  the  steps, 
brandishing  a  pit-prop  and  haranguing  his  com- 
rades. There  was  no  stopping  him.  Mrs.  Brash 
had  fired  the  train,  and  Killick  was  the  explosion. 
His  words  gushed  out  —  hot,  passionate,  deliri- 
ous. The  man's  sense  of  proportion,  always  un- 
stable, was  gone  entirely.  He  burned  with  the 
conviction  of  his  wrongs  and  those  of  his  fellows. 
Nobilis  ira  gave  him  eloquence.  He  laid  violent 
hands  upon  wealth  and  greed  and  tyranny,  and 
flung  them  one  by  one  down  the  steps  on  to  the 
heads  of  his  hearers.  Most  of  what  he  said  was 
entirely  irrelevant;  a  great  deal  more  was  entirely 
untrue;  but  it  served.  For  the  moment  Sir  John 
Carr  stood  for  all  the  injustice  and  cruelty 
that  strength  has  ever  inflicted  upon  weakness. 
Every  word  told.  The  mob  was  aflame  at  last. 
They  hung  upon  Killick's  fiery  sentences,  surg- 
ing ever  more  closely  round  the  steps.  The  next 
wave,  Juggernaut  saw,  would  bring  them  in  a 
flood  upon  the  terrace;  and  then  —  what?  He 
thought  coolly  and  rapidly.  There  was  Daphne 
to  consider  —  also  little  Brian.  Daphne,  he 
knew,  was  close  by,  standing  with  beating  heart 
behind  the  curtains  of  the  library  window.  He 


ATHANASIUS  CONTRA  MUNDUM    273 

had  forbidden  her  to  come  further.  Perhaps, 
though,  she  had  been  sensible,  and  taken  the  op- 
portunity of  this  delay  to  slip  away  — 

There  was  a  movement  beside  him,  and  he  re- 
alised that  his  education  in  femininity  still  left 
something  to  be  desired.  A  hand  slid  into  his, 
and  Daphne's  voice  whispered  in  his  ear:  — 

"Jack,  I  want  to  speak  to  them." 

Her  husband  turned  and  smiled  upon  her  cu- 
riously. 

"What  are  you  going  to  say?"  he  asked. 

"I  am  going  to  tell  them  about  —  about  the 
tea  and  sugar.  It 's  the  only  thing  to  do,"  said 
Daphne  eagerly. 

"I  would  rather  be  knocked  on  the  head  by  a 
pit-prop!"  said  Juggernaut. 

And  he  meant  it.  Some  of  us  are  terribly 
afraid  of  being  exposed  as  sentimentalists. 

Meanwhile  the  crowd  had  caught  sight  of 
Daphne.  The  men  fell  silent,  as  men  are  fain  to 
do  when  a  slim  goddess,  arrayed  in  black  velvet, 
appears  to  them  silhouetted  against  a  richly 
glowing  window.  But  there  was  a  vindictive 
shriek  from  the  women. 

"Get  back  at  once,  dear,"  said  Juggernaut. 
"You  are  in  grave  danger.  Telephone  to  the  po- 
lice, and  tell  Graves  to  get  the  fire-hose  out.  It 
may  be  useful  in  two  ways.  I  promise  to  come  in 
if  things  get  worse.  —  Hello!  who  is  that?" 


274    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

A  burly  man  in  a  bowler  hat,  panting  with  the 
unwonted  exertion  of  a  two-mile  run,  was  ap- 
proaching him  along  the  terrace.  He  had  come  up 
the  drive  unnoticed,  and  having  skirted  the  edge 
of  the  crowd,  had  gained  access  to  the  terrace 
from  another  flight  of  steps  at  the  end.  It  was 
Mr.  Walker,  the  mine  manager. 

"I  tried  to  get  you  on  the  telephone,"  he 
shouted  in  Juggernaut's  ear;  "but  they  have  cut 
the  wire." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Juggernaut. 

Walker  told  him. 

There  was  just  time  to  act.  The  mob  were 
pouring  up  the  steps  in  response  to  Killick's  final 
invitation.  Juggernaut  strode  forward. 

"  Stop ! "  he  cried,  in  a  voice  of  thunder.  "  Stop, 
and  listen  to  what  Mr.  Walker  has  to  tell 
you!" 

His  great  voice  carried,  and  there  was  a  mo- 
ment's lull.  Walker  seized  his  opportunity. 

"There  has  been  an  accident  at  the  pit,"  he 
bellowed.  "Some  of  your  lads  went  down  after 
you  had  left,  to  see  what  damage  they  could  do 
to  the  plant.  Some  of  the  older  men  went  down 
to  stop  them.  Something  happened.  The  roofs 
of  the  main  road  and  intake  have  fallen  in,  and 
Number  Three  Working  is  cut  off  —  with  eight 
men  in  it!" 

There  was  a  stricken  silence,  and   the  wave 


ATHANASIUS  CONTRA  MUNDUM    275 

rolled  back  from  the  steps.  Presently  a  hoarse 
voice  cried,  — 

"Who  are  they?" 

Mr.  Walker  recited  six  names.  Four  of  these 
belonged  to  young  bloods  who  had  been  foremost 
in  the  riot  at  the  pit-head.  There  were  agonised 
cries  from  women  in  the  crowd.  All  four  men 
were  married.  The  fifth  name,  that  of  Mr.  Adam 
Wilkie,  who  was  a  bachelor  and  a  misogynist, 
passed  without  comment.  The  sixth  was  that  of 
a  pit-boy  named  Hopper. 

Mr.  Walker  paused. 

"You  said  eight!"  cried  another  woman's 
voice  in  an  agony  of  suspense.  "The  other  two  — 
for  the  love  of  God ! " 

"Amos  Entwistle,"  replied  Mr.  Walker  grimly 
—  "and  Mr.  Carthew." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

LABORARE   EST   ORARE 

Six  men  sat  on  six  heaps  of  small  coal  in  a  long 
rectangular  cavern  five  feet  high  and  six  feet 
broad.  The  roof  was  supported  by  props  placed 
at  distances  specified  by  the  Board  of  Trade.  One 
side  of  the  cavern  was  pierced  at  regular  intervals 
by  narrow  openings  which  were  in  reality  pass- 
ages; the  other  was  a  blank  wall  of  gleaming  coal. 

This  was  the  "face"  —  that  point  in  the  seam 
of  coal  which  marked  the  limits  of  progress  of  the 
ever-advancing  line  of  picks  and  shovels. 

The  men  were  well  over  two  hundred  fathoms 
—  roughly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  —  below  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  and  they  had  been  prisoners  in 
Number  Three  Working  ever  since  an  explosion 
of  fire-damp  and  coal-dust  had  cut  them  off  from 
communication  with  the  rest  of  Bel  ton  Pit  six 
hours  before. 

The  prisoners  were  Jim  Carthew,  Amos  Ent- 
wistle,  and  Adam  Wilkie,  together  with  a  hewer, 
a  drawer,  and  a  pit-boy,  named  Atkinson,  Den- 
ton,  and  Hopper  respectively.  There  had  been 
two  others,  but  they  lay  dead  and  buried  beneath 
a  tombstone  twelve  hundred  feet  high. 

What  had  happened  was  this:  — 


LABORARE  EST  ORARE         277 

About  four  o'clock  on  that  disastrous  after- 
noon, Amos  Entwistle  was  sitting  despondently 
in  his  own  kitchen.  He  was  the  oldest  and  most 
influential  overman  in  Belton  Pit,  but  his  coun- 
sels of  moderation  had  been  swept  aside  by  the 
floods  of  Mr.  Winch's  oratory;  and  like  the 
practical  creature  that  he  was  he  had  returned 
home,  to  await  the  issue  of  the  insurrection  and 
establish  an  alibi  in  the  event  of  police-court 
proceedings. 

To  him  entered  Mr.  Adam  Wilkie,  with  the 
news  that  some  of  the  more  ardent  iconoclasts  of 
the  day-shift  had  remained  below  in  the  pit,  in 
order  to  break  down  the  roofs  of  some  of  the  gal- 
leries leading  to  the  workings  —  an  amiable  and 
short-sighted  enterprise  which,  though  pleas- 
antly irritating  to  their  employer,  must  inevita- 
bly throw  its  promoters  and  most  of  their  friends 
out  of  work  for  an  indefinite  period. 

Here  at  least  was  an  opportunity  to  act.  Ent- 
wistle hastily  repaired  to  the  pit-offices,  where 
he  knew  that  Mr.  Carthew  had  been  spending 
the  afternoon;  and  the  three,  united  for  the  mo- 
ment by  the  bond  of  common  sense  if  nothing 
else,  dropped  down  the  shaft  with  all  speed.  For- 
tunately the  man  in  charge  of  the  winding- 
engine  was  still  at  his  post,  and  of  an  amenable 
disposition. 

Arrived  at  the  pit-bottom,  they  hurried  along 


278    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

the  main  road.  The  atmosphere  was  foul  and 
close,  for  the  ventilating-machinery  had  ceased  to 
work.  There  was  a  high  percentage  of  fire-damp, 
too,  as  constant  little  explosions  in  their  Davy 
lamps  informed  them. 

Presently  they  overtook  the  enemy,  who  had 
done  a  good  deal  of  mischief  already ;  for  they  had 
set  to  work  in  the  long  tunnel  known  as  the  in- 
take, down  which  fresh  air  was  accustomed  to 
flow  to  the  distant  workings;  and  at  every  blow 
of  their  picks  a  pit-prop  fell  from  its  position  and 
an  overhead  beam  followed,  bringing  down  with 
it  a  mingled  shower  of  stone  and  rubbish. 

There  was  no  time  to  be  lost,  for  the  whole 
roof  might  fall  at  any  moment.  It  was  three 
against  five,  but  authority  is  a  great  asset  and 
conscience  a  great  liability.  By  adopting  a  "hus- 
tling" policy  of  the  most  thorough  description, 
Carthew,  Entwistle,  and  Wilkie  hounded  their 
slightly  demoralised  opponents  along  the  intake 
towards  the  face,  intending  to  round  up  the  gang 
in  one  of  the  passages  leading  back  to  the  main 
road,  and,  having  pursued  the  policy  of  peaceful 
dissuasion  to  its  utmost  limits,  conduct  their  con- 
verts back  to  the  shaft. 

The  tide  of  battle  rolled  out  of  the  intake  into 
the  cavern  formed  by  the  face  and  its  approaches. 
Master  Hopper  was  the  first  to  arrive,  the  toe  of 
Mr.  Entwistle's  boot  making  a  good  second. 


LABORARE  EST  ORARE         £79 

"Now,  you  men,"  said  Carthew,  addressing 
the  sullen,  panting  figures  which  crouched  before 
him,  —  the  roof  here  was  barely  five  feet  above 
the  floor,  —  "we  have  had  enough  of  this.  Get 
out  into  the  main  road  and  back  to  the  shaft. 
You  are  coming  up  topside  of  this  pit  with  us  — 
that's  flat!" 

But  his  opponents  were  greater  strategists 
than  he  supposed. 

"Keep  them  there,  chaps!"  cried  a  voice  al- 
ready far  down  one  of  the  passages. 

"Catch  that  man!"  cried  Carthew.  "Come 
on!" 

Shaking  off  Atkinson,  who  in  obedience  to 
orders  had  made  a  half-hearted  grab  at  him,  he 
darted  down  the  nearest  passage.  It  led  to  the 
main  road,  but  across  the  mouth  hung  a  wet  brat- 
tice-cloth. Delayed  a  moment,  he  hurried  on  to 
the  junction  with  the  main  road,  just  in  time  to 
descry  two  twinkling  Davy  lamps  disappearing 
round  a  distant  corner.  They  belonged  to  Davies 
and  Ren  wick,  the  ringleaders  of  the  gang.  What 
their  object  might  be  he  could  not  for  the  mo- 
ment divine,  but  he  could  hear  their  voices  re- 
echoing down  the  silent  tunnel.  Evidently  they 
were  making  for  the  main  road,  perhaps  to  raid 
the  engine-room  or  call  up  reserves.  He  must 
keep  them  in  sight.  Laboriously  he  hastened 
along  the  rough  and  narrow  track. 


280    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

Suddenly,  far  ahead  in  the  darkness,  he  heard 
a  crash,  followed  by  a  frightened  shriek.  Next 
moment  there  was  a  roar  which  almost  broke  the 
drums  of  his  ears,  and  the  whole  pit  seemed  to 
plunge  and  stagger.  His  lamp  went  out,  and  he 
lay  upon  the  floor  in  the  darkness,  —  darkness 
that  could  be  felt,  —  waiting  for  the  roof  to  fall 
in. 

Renwick  and  Davies,  it  was  discovered  long 
afterward,  had  reached  the  main  road,  running 
rapidly.  Here  one  of  them  must  have  tripped 
over  the  slack-lying  wire  cable  which  drew  the 
little  tubs  of  coal  up  the  incline  from  the  lyes  to 
the  foot  of  the  shaft.  Two  seconds  later  a  tiny 
puddle  of  flaming  oil  from  a  broken  lamp,  which 
for  once  in  a  way  had  not  been  extinguished  by 
its  fall,  had  supplied  the  necessary  ignition  to 
the  accumulated  fire-damp  and  coal-dust  of  the 
unventilated  pit.  There  was  one  tremendous  ex- 
plosion. Down  came  the  roof  of  the  main  road 
for  a  distance  of  over  a  half-mile,  burying  the  au- 
thors of  the  catastrophe,  Samson-like,  in  their 
own  handiwork. 

The  survivors  were  sitting  in  the  cul-de-sac 
formed  by  the  face  of  the  coal  and  its  approaches, 
three  quarters  of  a  mile  from  the  shaft.  No  one 
had  been  injured  by  the  explosion,  —  though 
Carthew,  being  nearest,  had  lain  half -stunned  for 


LABORARE  EST  ORARE          281 

a  few  minutes;  possibly  the  brattice-cloths,  hung 
at  intervals  across,  blanketing  its  force. 

The  party  had  just  returned  from  an  investi- 
gation of  the  possibilities  of  escape. 

"Will  you  report,  Mr.  Entwistle?"  said  Car- 
thew,  who  found  that  the  surviving  mutineers 
appeared  to  regard  him  as  the  supreme  head  of 
the  present  enterprise  and  Entwistle  as  his  chief 
adviser. 

Amos  Entwistle  complied. 

There  were  two  ways,  he  explained  in  his  broad 
North-Country  dialect,  by  which  Number  Three 
could  be  reached  from  the  shaft.  One  was  the  in- 
take, along  which  fresh  air  was  conducted  to  the 
workings,  and  the  other  was  the  main  road, 
which  could  be  reached  through  any  of  the  pass- 
ages leading  away  from  the  face.  The  explosion 
in  the  main  road  had  brought  down  the  roof  for  a 
distance  which  might  be  almost  anything.  The 
intake  was  blocked  too.  It  was  some  way  from 
the  scene  of  the  explosion,  but  the  props  were 
gone,  and  the  roof  had  come  down  from  end  to 
end,  for  all  he  knew. 

"Is  there  no  other  way  out?"  said  Carthew. 

"None,  sir." 

Carthew  indicated  the  row  of  openings  beside 
them. 

"Don't  any  of  these  lead  anywhere?" 

"They  all  lead  to  the  main  road,  except  that 


282    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

one  at  the  end,  which  leads  to  the  intake.  We 
have  plenty  of  room  to  move  about,  and  plenty 
of  air;  but  we  are  shut  in,  and  that's  a  fact,  sir." 

"Is  that  your  opinion  too,  Mr.  Wilkie?" 

"We  canna  get  oot  o'  this,  sir,"  replied  the 
oracle  with  complacent  finality. 

There  was  a  deathlike  silence.  Then  Master 
Hopper  began  to  cry  softly.  He  was  going  to  die, 
he  reflected  between  his  sobs,  and  he  was  very 
young  to  do  so.  It  was  hard  luck  his  being  there 
at  all.  He  had  only  joined  the  riot  from  youthful 
exuberance  and  a  desire  to  be  "in  the  hearse,"  as 
an  old  Scottish  lady  once  bitterly  observed  of  a 
too  pushful  mourner  at  her  husband's  funeral. 
He  entertained  no  personal  animosity  against  the 
owner  of  the  pit:  in  fact,  he  had  never  set  eyes 
on  him.  His  desire  had  merely  been  to  see  the 
fun.  Well,  he  was  seeing  it.  He  wept  afresh. 

Atkinson  and  Denton  sat  and  gazed  helplessly 
at  Carthew.  The  part  they  had  played  in  sealing 
up  six  souls  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  had  faded 
from  their  minds:  to  be  just,  it  had  faded  from 
the  minds  of  their  companions  as  well.  The  past 
lay  buried  with  Renwick  and  Davies.  The  future 
occupied  their  entire  attention. 

There  was  another  danger  to  be  considered  — 
the  after-damp  of  the  explosion.  Carthew  en- 
quired about  this.  Entwistle  considered  that  the 
risk  was  comparatively  slight. 


LABORARE  EST  ORARE         283 

"The  cloths  hung  across  the  approaches  to  the 
main  road  should  keep  it  away,"  he  said.  "  It 's  a 
heavy  gas,  and  don't  move  about  much,  like.  We 
shall  be  able  to  tell  by  the  lamps,  anyway." 

"Then  what  had  we  better  do?"  said  Carthew 
briskly.  "Dig?" 

One  of  the  men  —  Atkinson  —  lifted  his  head 
from  his  hands. 

"Ah  were  saved  by  t*  Salvationists  once,"  he 
said  hoarsely.  "Ah  could  put  up  a  prayer." 

"I  think  we  will  try  the  effect  of  a  little  spade- 
work  first,"  said  Carthew.  "Laborare  est  orare, 
just  now!"  he  added  to  himself. 

A  few  hours  later  they  reassembled.  They  had 
tapped,  sounded,  hewed,  and  shovelled  at  every 
potential  avenue  of  escape,  but  to  no  purpose. 
The  intake  and  main  road  appeared  to  be  blocked 
from  end  to  end.  Six  men  were  mewed  up  with  no 
food,  a  very  little  water,  twenty-four  hours' 
light,  and  a  limited  quantity  of  oxygen;  and  they 
had  no  means  of  knowing  how  near  or  how  far 
away  help  might  be. 

All  they  were  certain  of  was  that  on  the  other 
side  of  the  barrier  which  shut  them  in,  men  were 
working  furiously  to  reach  them  in  time,  and  that 
up  above  women  were  praying  to  God  that  He 
would  deliver  them. 


CHAPTER  XX 

BLACK  SUNDAY 

THE  search  party  had  concluded  its  investiga- 
tions, and  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  shaft,  —  which 
fortunately  had  not  been  injured  by  the  distant 
explosion,  —  waiting  for  the  cage. 

A  pit-bottom  is  an  unexpectedly  spacious 
place,  more  resembling  the  cellars  of  a  ducal  man- 
sion, or  a  City  station  in  the  days  of  the  old  Un- 
derground, than  a  burrow  in  the  hidden  places  of 
the  earth.  Whitewashed  brick  archways  open  up 
long  vistas,  illumined  by  electric  lamps.  Through 
an  adjacent  doorway  streams  the  cheerful  glow 
of  the  engine-room  from  which  the  haulage  of  the 
trucks  is  controlled.  Only  in  the  "sump,"  below 
the  level  of  the  flooring  at  the  foot  of  the  shaft, 
the  water  gleams  black  and  dismally. 

"Is  there  any  other  road  to  explore,  Mr. 
Walker?"  asked  a  huge  man  in  blue  overalls, 
with  a  patent  breathing-apparatus  strapped  upon 
his  back. 

"No,  Sir  John.  All  we  can  do  at  present  is  to 
get  the  ventilating-gear  going  again,  and  then 
send  down  a  double  shift  to  get  to  work  on  the 
main  road,  in  the  hope  of  finding  some  one  alive 


BLACK  SUNDAY  285 

at  the  end  of  it.  Meanwhile  we  will  go  up  and 
look  at  the  pit-plan." 

"How  long  do  you  think  it  will  take  to  get 
through?  You  know  more  of  the  anatomy  of  this 
pit  than  I  do." 

"It  depends  on  how  far  the  roof  is  down.  It 
will  be  slow  work,  for  we  must  re-prop  as  we  go. 
Twenty  yards  an  hour  is  about  the  best  we  can 
expect  to  do,  working  top-notch  all  the  time. 
And  if  the  road  is  blocked  from  end  to  end,  as 
well  it  may  be,  it  will  be  a  question  of  days,  Sir 
John." 

"And  in  Number  Three  they  have  neither 
food  nor  drink?" 

"Neither,  to  our  knowledge.  Probably  they 
have  a  little  water,  though.  We  must  get  at  them 
double-quick.  Here  is  the  cage  coming  down." 

The  cage  roared  upwards  between  the  wooden 
guides,  black  with  long  use  and  glistening  with  oil 
and  water;  and  presently  the  party  were  back  in 
the  great  shed  which  covered  the  pit-head,  push- 
ing their  way  through  anxious  enquirers  to  the 
office  buildings. 

Leaving  the  other  members  of  the  search  party 
—  an  overman  and  two  hewers  —  to  report  pro- 
gress, Sir  John  and  his  manager  shut  themselves 
into  the  inner  office.  Here  Walker  unrolled  the 
pit-plan,  which,  with  its  blocks  and  junctions  and 
crossings,  looked  very  like  an  ordinary  street  map. 


286    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"Here  we  are,'*  he  said.  "We  have  been  able 
to  explore  the  whole  pit  except  this  part  here," 
he  dug  the  point  of  his  pencil  into  a  distant  corner, 
—  "and  the  reason  is  that  the  means  of  access  to 
that  particular  level  are  blocked.  Here  is  where 
the  block  begins."  The  pencil  swiftly  shaded  in  a 
passage.  "There  is  the  intake,  all  blown  to 
smithereens;  that  and  the  road  to  Number  Three. 
But  if  there  are  men  alive  in  the  pit,  Number 
Three  is  where  we  shall  find  them." 

"Do  you  believe  that  they  are  alive?"  asked 
Juggernaut. 

"I  do.  It  seems  incredible  that  the  whole  roof 
should  have  come  down.  We  must  get  the  venti- 
lating-plant  in  order  and  dig  them  out :  that's  the 
only  way.  We  should  be  able  to  start  work  im- 
mediately." 

"Right!"  said  Juggernaut,  bracing  himself  at 
the  blessed  thought  of  action  once  more.  "I'll 
call  for  volunteers." 

A  minute  later,  appearing  at  a  brilliantly  lit 
window,  he  addressed  the  silent  throng  below 
him.  To  most  of  them  this  was  the  second  speech 
that  they  had  received  from  him  in  twelve  hours. 

"We  have  been  down  the  pit,"  he  said.  "There 
has  been  a  biggish  explosion,  and  Number  Three 
is  cut  off  by  a  heavy  fall.  The  air  below  will  be 
breatheable  in  less  than  an  hour,  and  we  are  going 
to  set  to  work  right  away,  and  clear,  and  clear, 


BLACK  SUNDAY  287 

and  clear,  until  we  find  out  whether  there  is  any 
one  left  alive  there.  Now"  —  his  voice  rang  out 
in  sudden  and  irresistible  appeal  —  "we  want 
men,  and  plenty  of  them.  Short  shifts  and  high 
pressure!  Those  poor  fellows  have  very  little 
water,  no  food,  and  a  doubtful  air-supply.  I  ask 
for  volunteers.  Who  will  come  down?  Step  for- 
ward —  now ! " 

A  gentle  ripple  passed  over  the  sea  of  upturned 
faces.  Then  it  died  away.  The  distance  between 
the  speaker  and  his  entire  audience  had  dimin- 
ished by  several  feet. 

"Thank  you!"  said  Juggernaut  simply.  "I 
knew  I  had  only  to  ask.  Mr.  Walker,  will  you  call 
the  overmen  together  and  get  going  as  soon  as 
possible?" 

So  the  work  began.  Six  hours  earlier  the  men 
of  Belton  had  failed  in  an  enterprise  for  lack  of  a 
leader.  Now  they  had  found  one. 

Sir  John  Carr  drove  the  first  shovel  into  the 
mass  which  blocked  the  main  road,  and  for  the 
space  of  thirty  minutes  he  set  a  standard  of  pace 
in  the  work  of  rescue  which  younger  and  more 
supple  successors  found  it  hard  to  maintain. 

Shift  followed  shift. 

Sunday  morning  dawned  up  above,  and  the 
sun  swung  into  a  cloudless  April  sky,  but  still  the 
work  below  went  on  —  grim,  untiring,  unprofit- 


288    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

able  work.   Hope  deferred  succeeded  to  hope  de- 
ferred. 

Twenty-four  hours  of  blind  energy  advanced 
the  rescuers  three  or  four  hundred  yards,  but 
there  seemed  to  be  no  end  to  the  fall.  Progress 
was  growing  slower,  too;  for  the  excavated  ma- 
terial had  to  be  carried  back  farther  every  time. 
Once  during  the  second  night  word  was  sent  up 
the  shaft  that  two  men  had  been  hurt  through  a 
fresh  fall  in  the  roof,  over-eagerness  being  the 
cause.  Still  the  work  went  on.  And  so  Black 
Sunday  drew  to  a  close,  to  be  succeeded  by  a 
Monday  of  a  very  similar  hue. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

VIEILLESSE   SAIT 

LADY  CARR  was  at  the  pit-head  early  on  Mon- 
day morning.  She  had  arrived  in  the  Belton 
motor,  just  in  time  to  provide  for  the  conveyance 
of  the  two  injured  men  to  the  County  Hospital, 
eleven  miles  away.  She  herself  passed  quietly  in 
and  out  amid  the  anxious  groups  of  men  and 
women.  She  said  little:  it  was  not  a  time  for 
words;  but  it  was  noted  that  she  lingered  for 
more  than  a  few  minutes  in  the  company  of 
Master  Hopper's  mother,  and  that  her  grave, 
slow  smile  appeared  to  hearten  that  broken 
widow  mightily. 

Presently  she  encountered  her  husband,  whom 
she  had  not  seen  for  two  nights  and  a  day. 

"You  here?  "he  said. 

"Yes.  I  have  sent  those  two  poor  men  away  to 
Kilchester  in  the  car,  and  I  am  waiting  for  it  to 
come  back."  Then  a  note  of  maternal  severity 
intervened.  "Have  you  been  to  bed  at  all  since 
I  last  saw  you?" 

"Not  much,"  admitted  Juggernaut.  "But  I 
have  a  vague  recollection  of  lying  down  some- 
where for  a  few  hours  last  night.  It  may  have 


290    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

been  on  the  office  sofa  or  it  may  have  been  in  the 
sump.  What  I  am  more  certain  of  is  that  I  have 
not  washed  for  days.  I  feel  like  Othello.  But 
what  has  brought  you  down  to  the  pit?" 

"I  thought  you  would  like  to  know,"  said 
Daphne,  "that  this  affair  is  in  the  morning  pa- 
pers." 

Othello  looked,  if  possible,  blacker  than  before. 

"Have  they  got  the  names?" 

:*Yes,  Jim  Carthew's,  too.  And  what  do  you 
think  the  result  has  been,  Jack?  I  have  had  a 
wire  from  —  from" — for  a  moment  Daphne's 
concern  for  the  tragedy  around  her  was  swallowed 
up  in  the  joy  of  the  matchmaking  sex  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth  —  "whom  do  you  think?  " 

"I  don't  know." 

"Nina  Tallentyre!  It  was  the  first  thing  she 
heard  when  she  landed  in  England.  She  is  frantic 
about  him,  and  is  coming  down  here  to-day.  She 
has  offered  to  sleep  anywhere,  do  anything,  if 
only  she  may  come.  Jack,  is  n't  it  too  heav- 
enly?" Daphne  positively  crowed. 

Juggernaut's  teeth  flashed  across  his  grimy 
countenance  in  a  sympathetic  smile. 

"You  women!"  he  said  softly.  "We  must  fish 
him  out  for  her  after  this,  Daphne.  Well,  Mrs. 
Entwistle?" 

A  middle-aged  woman  with  hungry  eyes  was 
at  his  elbow.  She  was  Amos  Entwistle's  wife. 


VIEILLESSE  SAIT  291 

"Would  you  come  and  speak  to  old  Mr.  Ent- 
wistle,  sir?'*  she  said  —  "my  man's  father.  He 
is  too  rheumatic  to  move  about  easy,  but  he 
seems  to  have  something  on  his  mind  about 
another  way  of  getting  at  them." 

Sir  John  Carr  turned  and  followed  Mrs.  Ent- 
wistle  promptly. 

"Shall  I  come,  too,  dear?"  said  Daphne. 

"Better  not.  But  go  and  send  Walker  to  me  if 
you  can  find  him." 

Mrs.  Entwistle  conducted  Juggernaut  to  a 
sunny  nook,  sheltered  from  the  keen  breeze, 
against  the  brickwork  of  the  power-house.  Here 
sat  Entwistle  senior,  stone-deaf,  almost  blind, 
but  with  his  eighty-year-old  wits  still  bright  and 
birdlike. 

He  was  no  respecter  of  titles  or  employers,  this 
old  gentleman,  and  in  high-pitched  senile  tones 
he  criticised  the  arrangements  for  rescue.  The 
excavatory  operations  were  a  mistake.  Time  was 
being  wasted.  The  poor  lads  inside  had  nobbut  a 
little  water  to  drink  and  nowt  to  eat.  The  air 
would  be  getting  foul,  too. 

"You  must  get  there  quick,  Sir  John,"  he  said, 
rising  painfully  from  his  seat.  "See  now." 

He  began  to  hobble  laboriously  away  from  the 
vicinity  of  the  pit-head  towards  the  rather 
grimy  fields  which  lay  to  the  north  of  the  colliery. 
By  this  time  Walker  had  arrived,  bringing  with 


292    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

him  a  burly,  bearded  Pit  Inspector,  sent  down  by 
the  Board  of  Trade. 

Twenty  minutes'  laborious  walking  ended  in  a 
halt  in  the  middle  of  a  bleak  pasture  field,  from 
which  a  few  unconcerned  sheep  were  extracting 
some  exceedingly  dubious-looking  nourishment. 
Mr.  Entwistle  called  a  halt. 

"Been  thinking  things  over,"  said  he,  breath- 
ing stertorously.  "Known  this  countryside, 
above  and  below,  nigh  seventy  year.  The  lads, 
they  go  buzzing  round  the  pit-head,  but  the  old 
man"  —  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  said  "t'owd 
mon,"  but  it  will  be  simpler  to  paraphrase  his  ut- 
terance —  "  sits  at  home  and  thinks  things  over. 
They  has  to  come  to  him  in  the  end!" 

All  this  was  highly  irrelevant  and  proportion- 
ately exasperating;  but  old  age  has  its  privileges. 
Doubtless  Agamemnon,  Menelaus,  and  other 
eager  stalwarts  longed  with  all  their  hearts  to 
tear  Nestor  limb  from  limb,  what  time  that  ven- 
erable bore  delivered  himself  of  fifty  lines  of  au- 
tobiographical hexameters  as  a  preliminary  to 
coming  to  the  point;  yet  they  never  did.  Pre- 
sently Mr.  Entwistle  concluded  his  exordium  and 
tapped  upon  the  ground  with  his  staff. 

"We  are  standing,"  he  announced,  "right  over 
the  road  to  Number  Three.  Two  hundred 
fathom  down,"  he  added,  in  case  they  should 
have  overlooked  this  point. 


VIEILLESSE  SAIT  293 

This  at  any  rate  was  a  statement  of  fact. 
Walker  produced  and  consulted  the  pit-plan. 
"You  are  about  right,"  he  said.  "Well?" 

"How  far  along  this  road  is  the  face?"  en- 
quired the  old  gentleman.  "It's  a  tidy  number 
of  years  since  I  — " 

Walker  told  him,  with  the  result  that  the  ex- 
cursion was  resumed.  Presently  Mr.  Entwistle 
came  to  a  halt  again. 

"We're  over  Number  Three  now,"  he  said. 

Walker  again  confirmed  him,  with  the  aid  of  a 
compass  bearing  and  the  pit-plan. 

"Well?"  he  said. 

The  old  man  pointed  with  his  stick  to  some 
dismantled  and  abandoned  pit  buildings  further 
down  the  valley,  a  full  mile  away. 

"  The  old  Shawcliffe  Pit,"  he  croaked.  "  Worked 
out  this  forty  year.  But  I  knowed  it  well  when 
I  were  a  lad." 

Juggernaut,  suddenly  seeing  light,  caught  the 
old  man  by  the  arm. 

"You  mean,"  said  he  rapidly,  "that  the  Shaw- 
cliffe Workings  run  up  this  way  — " 

"No,  no,"  said  Walker,  interrupting.  "You 
are  wrong,  Mr.  Entwistle.  The  Shawcliffe  Work- 
ings all  run  down  the  other  way,  to  the  north." 

"Nay,"  persisted  the  old  gentleman  —  "not 
all.  They  thowt  there  were  a  seam  this  way,  and 
they  drove  one  road  out  here,  if  so  be  they  might 


294    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

pick  it  up.  They  had  got  signs  of  it,  boring.  But 
it  were  a  faulty  seam.  It  were  n't  until  Belton 
Pit  were  opened,  thirty  years  later,  that  they 
struck  it  fair." 

"And  that  road  runs  out  this  way,  from  Shaw- 
cliffe  shaft?"  asked  the  Inspector. 

"Aye,  and  it  must  come  very  nigh  to  the 
Belton  Workings  now  —  nigh  to  Number  Three. 
I  reckon  — " 

"He  is  right!"  said  Walker  excitedly.  "It's  a 
chance !  I  have  heard  of  this  road,  now  I  think  of 
it."  He  turned  to  Entwistle  again.  "How  far 
out  do  you  think  it  runs?  Quick,  man  —  tell  us ! " 

For  answer  the  veteran,  much  inflated, 
stumped  off  again  in  a  northerly  direction,  with 
all  the  assurance  of  a  water-diviner  in  full  cry. 
After  fifty  yards  or  so  he  stopped. 

"I  should  say  it  ended  about  here,"  he  said. 
"You  can  trust  the  old  man's  memory.  The 
youngsters  — " 

Another  lengthy  deliverance  was  plainly  threat- 
ened, but  this  time  our  Nestor  observed,  not 
without  justifiable  chagrin,  that  the  majority  of 
his  audience  had  disappeared.  The  symposium 
was  suddenly  reduced  to  himself  and  his  daughter- 
in-law.  Testily  curtailing  his  peroration,  to  the 
exclusion  of  several  valuable  aphorisms  upon  the 
advantages  of  age  over  youth,  the  old  gentleman 
resignedly  took  the  arm  of  Mrs.  Amos  and  per- 


VIEILLESSE  SAIT  295 

mitted  himself  to  be  conducted  back  to  his  fire- 
side. 

But  he  had  served  his  turn  for  all  that. 

The  other  three  were  hurrying  back  to  Belton 
Pit,  talking  eagerly,  Juggernaut  leading  by  half 
a  pace. 

"It's  madness,  of  course,"  said  Walker  cheer- 
fully. "This  pit  has  been  closed  for  forty  years. 
The  props  will  be  down  — " 

"The  air  will  be  foul — "  said  the  Inspector 
thoughtfully. 

"Or  explosive,"  said  Walker. 

"And  there  will  probably  be  water,"  con- 
tinued both  together. 

"Is  the  shaft  still  open?"  asked  Juggernaut 
brusquely. 

"I  believe  so,"  added  Walker. 

"  I  suppose  it  would  be  possible  to  rig  a  derrick 
and  tackle  over  it?  " 

"Yes." 

They  strode  on  a  dozen  paces. 

"I  am  going  down,"  said  Juggernaut. 

"I  am  going  with  you,"  said  Walker. 

"And  I,"  said  the  Inspector,  "am  going 
too." 

They  broke  into  a  trot. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

HOLD   THE   FORT! 

THE  safety-lamps  had  burned  themselves  out 
hours  ago,  and  the  imprisoned  party  sat  on 
in  the  dark.  There  was  nothing  else  to  do.  Food 
they  had  none;  their  water  was  exhausted.  They 
slept  fitfully,  but  in  the  black  darkness  sleep 
seemed  little  removed  from  death,  and  time  from 
eternity. 

Jim  Carthew  lay  with  his  head  upon  a  friendly 
lump  of  coal,  pondering  with  his  accustomed  de- 
tachment upon  the  sundry  and  manifold  changes 
of  this  world.  He  thought  of  death.  Plainly  he 
and  his  companions  were  about  to  solve  the 
mystery  of  what  lay  hidden  round  that  corner 
which  our  omniscience  is  pleased  to  consider  the 
end  of  all  things.  What  would  they  find  there? 
Another  life  —  a  vista  more  glorious  and  sub- 
lime than  man  in  his  present  state  could  conceive? 
Or  just  another  long  lane  —  just  another  high- 
way of  labour  and  love  and  service  and  reward? 
Or  —  a  cul-de-sac  —  an  abyss  —  a  jumping-off 
place?  He  wondered.  Not  the  last  alternative, 
he  thought;  more  likely  one  of  the  other  two. 
Anyhow,  he  would  know  soon,  and  it  would  be 


HOLD  THE  FORT,  297 

interesting.  His  one  regret  was  that  he  would 
not  be  able  to  come  back,  even  for  five  minutes, 
to  tell  his  friends  about  it. 

Friends!  .  .  . 

This  brought  a  new  train  of  reflection.  He 
thought  of  Jack  Carr,  and  Jack  Carr's  wife. 
Would  the  latter  keep  her  promise,  and  come 
back  to  her  husband,  he  wondered.  She  should 
be  in  Belton  this  week,  all  being  well  —  that  is, 
if  this  was  the  week  he  thought  it  was.  But  time 
seemed  rather  a  jumbled  affair  at  present.  Be- 
sides, he  was  so  infernally  hungry  that  he  could 
not  reason  things  out.  Never  mind!  .  .  . 

He  thought  of  Nina  Tallentyre.  That  difficulty 
had  solved  itself,  anyhow.  No  need  for  further 
hopings  or  strivings:  that  was  a  relief!  When 
their  rupture  occurred,  he  had  prayed  to  be  ex- 
cused from  living  further.  He  had  even  peti- 
tioned that  the  earth  might  open  and  swallow 
him  up  forever.  Well,  the  earth  had  done  so,  so 
he  ought  to  be  satisfied.  He  was  gone  down  into 
silence,  and  Nina  was  rid  of  him  —  well  rid  of 
him!  He  was  well  rid  of  her,  too.  She  had  led 
him  a  dog's  life  the  last  few  months.  A  dog's  life! 
He  repeated  the  fact  to  himself  pertinaciously, 
but  without  any  great  feeling  either  of  convic- 
tion or  of  resentment. 

He  felt  strangely  contented  and  cheerful.  His 
mind  dwelt  with  persistence  on  the  bright  side  of 


298    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

things.  He  thought  of  the  day  when  she  and  he 
had  first  met,  and  Nina,  in  her  superb,  imperious 
manner,  had  desired  him  to  take  her  out  of  "this 
rabble"  and  come  and  amuse  her  in  a  corner.  He 
remembered  subsequent  meetings;  various  gra- 
cious acts  of  condescension  on  Nina's  part;  and 
finally  one  special  evening  on  board  a  yacht  in 
regatta-time,  when  they  had  sat  together  in  a 
corner  of  the  upper  deck  in  the  lee  of  the  chart- 
house,  with  a  perfectly  preposterous  moon  egging 
them  on,  and  the  faint  strains  of  Caressante  puls- 
ing across  the  silent  water  from  the  Commodore's 
yacht  hardby ;  and  Nina  had  nearly  —  almost  — 
ail-but  —  and  then  actually  —  capitulated. 

She  had  gone  back  on  her  word  three  weeks 
later,  it  was  true;  but  he  drew  consolation  even 
now  from  the  memory  of  something  which  had 
slipped  through  her  long  lashes  and  rolled  down 
her  cheek  even  as  she  dismissed  him,  a  mem- 
ory which  had  carried  through  many  a  black 
hour. 

It  was  over  episodes  like  this  that  his  mind 
lingered.  Other  and  less  satisfactory  items  de- 
clined to  come  up  for  review.  Perhaps,  he  re- 
flected, dying  men,  provided  they  had  lived 
clean  and  run  straight,  were  always  accorded 
this  privilege.  Only  the  credit  side  of  the  ledger 
accompanied  them  on  their  journey  into  the  un- 
known. It  was  a  comforting  thought. 


HOLD  THE  FORT  299 

.  .  .  He  wondered  what  she  would  think  when 
she  heard  about  it.  In  a  blue  envelope  at  the 
bottom  of  his  private  strong-box  they  would  find 
his  will,  a  primitive  document  composed  in  se- 
crecy, and  endorsed:  "To  be  opened  when  I  have 
gone  out  for  good."  In  this  he  had  bequeathed 
all  he  possessed  to  "my  friend  Miss  Nina  Tallen- 
tyre,"  be  she  maid,  wife,  or  widow  at  the  mo- 
ment. Carthew  was  not  a  man  who  loved  by 
halves.  All  that  he  had  was  hers,  whether  she 
needed  it  or  not.  Of  course  she  must  not  be 
made  conspicuous  in  the  matter;  he  had  seen  to 
that.  The  bequest  was  to  be  quite  quiet  and  un- 
ostentatious. No  probate,  or  notices  in  the  papers, 
or  rot  of  that  kind.  In  the  blue  envelope  was  en- 
closed a  private  letter  to  his  lawyers,  dwelling 
on  the  importance  of  this  point.  They  were  de- 
cent old  duffers,  that  firm,  and  would  understand. 
They  would  square  up  any  death-duties  and 
other  legal  fakements  that  were  necessary,  and 
then  pass  on  the  balance  to  little  Nina,  to  buy  her- 
self pretty  things  with.  But  no  publicity!  No 
embarrassment ! 

.  .  .  He  fell  asleep,  and  dreamed,  from  the 
natural  perversity  of  things,  of  roast  beef  and 
Yorkshire  pudding. 

When  he  awoke,  low  voices  were  conversing 
near  him.  Farther  away  he  could  hear  the  reg- 
ular breathing  of  Master  Hopper,  who,  with 


300    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

youth's  ready  amenability  to  Nature's  own  an- 
odynes, was  slumbering  peacefully. 

"I  can  weel  understand,  Mr.  Entwistle,"  ob- 
served Mr.  Wilkie  in  measured  tones,  "that  no 
decent  body  would  like  to  be  seen  entering  yin  o' 
they  Episcopalian  Kirks  —  " 

Amos  Entwistle's  heavy  voice  agreed.  He 
commented  with  heat  upon  indulgence  in  vain 
repetition  and  other  heathen  practices  favoured 
by  the  Anglican  Community;  and  related  with 
grim  relish  an  anecdote  of  how  his  own  daughter, 
lured  from  the  Wesleyan  fold  by  the  external  fas- 
cinations of  the  new  curate,  had  once  privily  at- 
tended morning  service  at  the  Parish  Church  — 
to  return  shocked  to  the  foundations  of  her  be- 
ing, with  horrific  tales  of  candles  burning  on  the 
altar  in  broad  daylight  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  re- 
peated four  times  in  the  course  of  a  single  service. 

"But  what  I  couldna  thole,"  continued  Mr. 
Wilkie,  who  had  been  characteristically  pursu- 
ing his  own  line  of  thought  in  the  mean  time, 
"  would  be  no  tae  belong  tae  the  kirk  of  the  land. 
A  Chapel  body!  I  could  never  endure  the  dis- 
grace of  it." 

Entwistle  demurred  vigorously.  It  was  no  dis- 
grace to  be  Chapel  folks.  Sturdy  Independents 
were  proud  to  be  able  to  dispense  with  state- 
aided,  spoon-fed  religion.  Disgrace  indeed!  Were 
not  Mr.  Wilkie's  qualms  on  the  subject  of  Dis- 


HOLD  THE  FORT  301 

sent  due  rather  to  a  hankering  after  the  flesh-pots 

—  the  loaves  and  fishes  —  the  — 

"Well,  perhaps  no  exactly  a  disgrace,"  contin- 
ued Mr.  Wilkie,  disregarding  the  latter  innuendo, 
"but  a  kin'  o'  stigma,  like.  Man,  it's  an  awful 
thing  tae  walk  doon  the  street  and  meet  the 
minister  o'  the  pairish,  and  him  pass  by  and  tak' 
no  more  notice  of  ye  than  if  ye  were  a  Plymouth 
Brother  or  an  Original  Secessionist.  I  mind  yince 
when  I  was  in  a  Tyneside  pit,  I  sat  under  Mr. 
Maconochie  —  him  that  gave  up  a  grand  kirk  in 
Paisley  tae  tak'  a  call  tae  oor  wee  bit  Presbyte- 
rian contraption,  Jarrow  way.  Now,  although 
Mr.  Maconochie's  kirk  was  my  kirk  and  him  oor 
minister,  I  used  tae  feel  far  more  uplifted  if  I  got 
a  good-day  frae  the  minister  o'  the  English  Kirk 

—  Golightly,  or  some  sic*  name  —  an  Episcopal- 
ian!  I  canna  imagine  why,  but  there  it  was.   I 
doot  it  was  just  orthodoxy.  He  was  the  minister 
o'  the  kirk  o'  the  land,  and  Mr.  Maconochie,  be- 
ing, for  him,  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  Boarder, 
was  not.    Gin  I  had  met  yon  felly  Golightly 
trapesing  doon  the  High  Street  o'  Jedburgh, 
things  would  hae  been  gey  different;  for  then  — " 

The  point  at  issue,  Entwistle's  deep,  patient 
voice  asseverated,  was  this.  Should  a  man  who 
was  an  Independent  allow  himself  or  his  bairns  to 
have  aught  to  do  with  Church  folk  on  any  pre- 
tence whatever? 


302    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

He  was  answered  in  the  darkness  by  a  third 
voice.  Denton,  the  hewer,  —  Atkinson,  the  re- 
tired Salvationist,  shovelled  and  wheeled  away 
in  a  tub  what  Denton  hewed,  —  had  awaked 
from  an  uneasy  sleep,  and  was  listening  to  the 
conversation.  Of  all  that  little  band  probably  he 
was  the  least  prepared  to  die.  He  was  a  drunkard, 
a  blasphemer,  and  an  evil  liver.  But  like  the  rest 
of  us,  he  had  his  redeeming  features.  He  had 
inspired  and  kept  alive  for  a  period  of  ten  years 
the  love  of  his  wife  —  a  feat  which  many  an 
ex-sidesman,  buried  beneath  a  mountain  of  ex- 
pensive masonry,  adorned  by  an  epitaph  begin- 
ning, "Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant!" 
—  has  signally  failed  to  accomplish.  He  sat  up 
now. 

"Ah  niver  'ad  nowt  to  do  wi'  churches  or  chap- 
els," he  began  defiantly.  "But  ah  knaws  this. 
When  my  Maggie  were  lyin*  badly  four  years 
agone,  and  us  thought  she  was  goin'  to  die,  she 
asked  me  to  go  and  fetch  her  pastor  —  that 's 
what  she  called  him.  Ah  ran  along  to  his  house 
and  begged  him  to  come.  He  said"  —  the  man's 
voice  grew  thick,  and  one  could  almost  see  his 
sombre  eyes  glow  in  the  gross  darkness  —  "he 
said  he  was  busy !  There  was  a  swarry  that  neet 
that  't  was  his  duty  to  attend,  and  next  day  he 
was  going  off  to  a  political  meetin'  to  protest 
against  t*  Education  Bill,  or  summat.  He  said, 


HOLD  THE  FORT  303 

too,  that  he  had  enough  to  do  ministerin'  to  the 
wants  o'  them  that  deserved  ministerin'  to,  wi'- 
out  comin'  to  the  house  o'  the  likes  o'  me.  When 
had  he  last  seen  me  in  t'  chapel,  he  would  like  to 
knaw?  Yes,  that  was  what  he  wanted  to  knaw! 
He  wanted  to  stand  and  ask  me  questions  like 
that  when  my  Maggie  — !  ...  Ah  cursed  him, 
and  his  chapel,  and  his  fat-bellied  deacons,  till 
Ah  were  out  o'  puff  with  it;  then  Ah  went  off 
down  the  street  half -crazed.  There  Ah  runs 
straight  into  a  young  feller  wi'  a  soft  black  hat 
and  long  legs.  He  was  standing  outside  t'  door 
of  his  lodgings,  smoking  a  pipe  in  the  dark.  He 
was  t'  curate  at  t'  Parish  Church,  and  when  he 
saw  I  was  n't  in  liquor  he  asked  me  what  was  my 
trouble.  I  telled  him.  '  Is  that  all? '  says  he. '  Will 
I  do?  I  've  just  come  off  my  day's  work,  and  I 
ain't  got  nothing  to  do  but  amuse  mysen  now.* 
It  were  nearly  ten  o'clock.  Well,  he  comes  with 
me,  and  he  sat  by  my  Maggie  all  the  neet  through, 
and  sent  me  with  a  note  to  a  doctor  that  were  a 
friend  of  his,  and  only  went  away  himsel'  at  seven 
o'clock  next  morning,  because  he  had  to  get 
shaved  and  take  early  servace,  or  summat.  That  's 
all  your  chapel  folk  ever  done  for  me,  Amos 
Entwistle—  " 

"That  was  a  special  case,  and  proves  no  rules. 
Besides,"  said  Entwistle  soberly,  "this  is  no 
time  for  religious  differences.  We  are  in  God's 


304    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

hands  now,  and  I  doubt  we  shall  all  be  in  a  place 
soon  where  there  is  neither  Church  nor  Chapel.'* 

"Would  it  no  be  best  for  us  all  tae  keep  silence 
for  a  matter  o'  ten  minutes,"  suggested  Wilkie, 
"and  pit  up  a  bit  prayer  each  of  his  ain,  we  bein' 
no  all  of  the  same  way  of  thinkin'  in  these  mat- 
ters? That  gate,  wi'  so  many  prayers  o'  different 
denominations  goin'  up,  yin  at  least  should  get 
through  the  roof  of  the  pit.  Are  ye  agreed, 
chaps?" 

"Aye,  aye!"  said  Entwistle. 

The  others  all  murmured  assent,  save  Master 
Hopper,  who  shrieked  out  in  sudden  fear.  The 
proximity  of  death  had  become  instantly  and 
dreadfully  apparent  to  him  on  Mr.  Wilkie's  sug- 
gestion. 

Carthew  reached  out  and  pulled  him  to  his 
side. 

"Come  over  here,  by  me,"  he  said. 

Master  Hopper,  greatly  soothed,  crept  close, 
and  settled  down  contentedly  enough  with  an 
arm  round  Carthew's  shoulders.  Presently  Car- 
thew heard  him  repeating  the  Lord's  Prayer  to 
himself  in  a  low  and  respectful  whisper. 

The  silence  lasted  longer  than  ten  minutes. 
For  one  thing,  the  supplicants  were  exhausted  in 
body,  soul,  and  spirit,  and  their  orisons  came 
slowly.  For  another,  there  was  no  need  to  hurry. 
For  nearly  an  hour  no  one  spoke. 


HOLD  THE  FORT  305 

At  length  some  one  sat  up  in  the  darkness,  and 
the  voice  of  Atkinson  said:  — 

"Mr.  Carthew,  sir,  I  think  a  song  of  praise 
would  hearten  us  all." 

"  I  believe  it  would,"  said  Carthew.  He  was  not 
enamoured  of  the  corybantic  hymnology  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  but  the  horror  of  black  darkness 
was  beginning  to  eat  into  his  soul,  and  he  knew 
that  the  others  were  probably  in  the  same  plight. 
"What  shall  we  sing?" 

"At  the  meeting  where  I  were  saved,"  said 
Atkinson  deferentially,  "we  concluded  worship 
by  singing  a  hymn  I  have  never  forgotten  since: 
'Hold  the  Fort!'" 

"That  sounds  a  good  one,"  said  Carthew, 
struggling  with  an  unreasonable  sensation  of 
being  in  the  chair  at  a  smoking-concert.  "Does 
any  one  else  here  know  'Hold  the  Fort5?" 

Yes,  Entwistle  knew  it.  Master  Hopper  had 
heard  it.  Mr.  Wilkie  had  not.  He  did  not  hold 
with  hymns:  even  paraphrases  were  not,  in  his 
opinion,  altogether  free  from  the  taint  of  Popery. 
If  it  had  been  one  of  the  Psalms  of  David,  now ! 
Still,  he  would  join.  Denton  knew  no  hymns, 
but  was  willing  to  be  instructed  in  this  one. 

Atkinson,  trembling  with  gratification,  slowly 
rehearsed  the  words,  the  others  repeating  them 
after  him. 

"We  will  sing  it  now,"  he  said. 


306    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE  \ 

He  raised  the  tune  in  a  clear  tenor.  Most 
North-Countrymen  are  musicians  by  instinct. 
In  a  few  moments  this  grim  prison  was  flooded  by 
a  wave  of  sonorous  melody.  The  simple,  vulgar, 
taking  tune  swelled  up;  the  brave  homely  words 
rang  out,  putting  new  heart  into  every  one.  One 
and  all  joyfully  realised  that  there  are  worse 
ways  of  going  to  one's  end  than  singing  a  battle- 
song  composed  by  Moody  and  Sankey.  With 
drawn  white  faces  upturned  to  the  heaven  they 
could  not  see,  they  sang  on,  flinging  glorious  de- 
fiance into  the  very  teeth  of  Death  —  gentleman 
and  pitman,  Church  and  Chapel,  zealot  and  in- 
fidel. 

"Last  verse  again!"  commanded  Atkinson. 

"Wait  a  moment!"  cried  Entwistle,  starting 
up. 

But  no  one  heard  him.  The  chorus  was  rolling 
out  once  more:  — 

"  Hold  the  fort,  for  I  am  coming — " 

Tap,  tap,  tap!  Scrape,  scrape,  scrape!  Ham- 
mer, hammer,  hammer! 

The  hymn  paused,  wavered,  and  stopped  dead 
on  the  final  shout. 

"By  God!"  screamed  a  voice  —  it  was  Den- 
ton's  —  "here  they  are!" 

Carthew,  with  Hopper's  arms  tightening  con- 
vulsively round  him,  started  up. 


HOLD  THE  FORT  307 

"Is  it  true?"  he  asked  hoarsely. 

"Aye!  Listen!  They  have  found  us.  They  are 
within  a  few  yards  of  us,"  said  Entwistle. 

"Praise  God,  from  whom  all  blessings  flow!" 
sang  Atkinson,  and  the  others  joined  him. 

Entwistle  was  right.  Reasoned  calculation, 
dogged  persistence,  and  blind  indifference  to 
their  own  safety  had  brought  the  search  party 
triumphantly  along  the  mouldering,  rickety 
passages  of  Shawcliffe  Pit  to  the  nearest  point  of 
contact  with  Number  Three  in  Belton ;  and 
"Hold  the  Fort!"  proceeding  fortissimo  from  a 
subterranean  cave  of  harmony  not  many  yards 
away,  had  done  the  rest. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   LAST   TO   LEAVE 

IT  was  night  once  more,  and  the  great  arc  lights 
snapped  and  sizzled  above  the  waste-heaps  and 
truck-lines  surrounding  the  head  of  Belton  Pit. 
But  the  scene  was  deserted.  The  centre  of  interest 
had  shifted  to  Shawcliffe,  a  mile  away.  Here  a 
vast  silent  throng  of  human  beings  stood  expect- 
antly in  groups,  their  faces  illuminated  by  the 
naphtha  flares  which  had  been  erected  here  and 
there  about  the  long-abandoned  pit-head. 

There  was  news  —  tense,  thrilling  news  —  and 
the  prospect  of  more.  The  ancient  shaft  had 
been  opened  and  a  bucket  and  tackle  rigged,  - 
there  was  no  time  to  ship  a  cage,  —  and  a  search 
party  had  gone  down  at  dusk.  Word  had  shortly 
been  sent  up  that  the  road  to  the  south  was  still 
open,  though  the  air  was  foul  and  the  props  rick- 
ety. Then  came  a  frantic  tug  at  the  rope,  and  a 
messenger  was  hauled  to  the  surface,  crying  aloud 
that  men  were  alive  in  Belton  Pit.  It  was  hoped, 
he  added,  that  the  search  party  would  reach 
them  by  midnight,  for  the  dividing-wall  was  sur- 
prisingly thin.  Sir  John  Carr's  order  was  that 
blankets  and  stretchers  should  be  prepared;  also 


THE  LAST  TO  LEAVE  309 

food  and  medical  comforts,  for  the  prisoners  had 
fasted  for  something  like  sixty  hours.  With  that 
the  messenger  had  dived  below  once  more,  and 
the  game  of  patience  was  resumed. 

It  was  past  midnight  now,  and  everything 
was  in  readiness.  On  the  outskirts  of  the  throng, 
at  the  side  of  the  rough  and  lumpy  road,  stood  a 
motor-car,  with  two  occupants  —  women.  One 
of  them  was  her  ladyship;  the  other  the  specta- 
tors failed  to  recognise.  But  there  were  rumours 
about  to  the  effect  that  she  was  a  visitor  to 
Belton,  recently  arrived  from  London.  Lady 
Carr  had  been  seen  meeting  her  at  the  station 
that  afternoon. 

The  stranger's  name,  had  it  been  told,  would 
not  have  conveyed  much  information  to  the 
watchers.  It  was  Nina  Tallentyre. 

There  was  a  sudden  swirl  and  heave  in  the 
crowd.  The  hand-turned  windlass  was  at  work 
again,  and  some  one  was  being  hauled  slowly  up 
the  shaft.  It  was  Mr.  Walker,  the  manager. 

They  made  a  lane  for  him,  until  he  reached  a 
convenient  rostrum  formed  by  an  inverted  and 
rusty  truck.  This  he  mounted,  and  very  briefly 
told  them  the  news  —  news  which  made  them 
laugh  foolishly  and  sob  by  turns.  There  was  no 
cheering:  they  were  past  that. 

In  the  excitement,  the  next  man  who  followed 
him  up  the  shaft  passed  unnoticed.  It  was  Sir 


310    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

John  Carr.  He  saw  the  hooded  motor  standing 
apart,  Mr.  Vick  sitting  motionless  at  the  wheel. 
Next  moment  he  was  in  beside  the  two  women, 
overalls  and  all,  holding  Daphne's  two  hands  in 
a  single  grimy  fist  and  telling  them  what  we 
know  already. 

"  Is  he  perfectly  safe?  "  asked  Nina  for  the  tenth 
time.  She  did  not  possess  Daphne's  aristocratic 
composure  under  critical  circumstances. 

"  Yes  —  but  very  weak.  I  am  sending  him  up 
second.  The  first  is  a  pit-boy.  When  Carthew 
arrives,  you  had  better  put  him  in  the  motor  and 
take  him  straight  home." 

"Jack!"  said  Daphne. 

She  slipped  out  of  the  car  and  accompanied 
her  husband  into  the  darkness  outside  the  radius 
of  flaring  lights. 

"Are  you  going  down  again?"  she  asked. 

"I  am." 

"And  when  are  you  coming  up?" 

The  unflinching  courage  that  upholds  so  many 
women  in  the  face  of  danger  had  never  failed 
Daphne  during  those  long  days  and  nights.  But 
now  the  courage  was  receding  with  the  danger. 

Juggernaut  smiled. 

"When  would  you  have  me  come  up?"  he 
asked. 

"Last,"  said  Daphne,  suddenly  proud.  "It  is 
the  only  place  for  you.  I  will  wait  here.  Nina 


THE  LAST  TO  LEAVE  311 

can  take  her  Jim  home,  and  the  car  can  come 
back  later  for  you  and  me  .  .  .  Jack!" 

Her  husband  turned  and  regarded  her  curi- 
ously. Their  eyes  met. 

"Well?  "he  said. 

"Jack,"  continued  Daphne  in  a  low  voice,  "is 
there  much  risk  down  there  —  for  you,  I  mean?  " 

"There  is  always  risk,  of  a  sort,  down  a  coal- 
pit," replied  her  husband  pontifically.  "A  little 
explosive  marsh-gas,  or  a  handful  of  finely  di- 
vided coal-dust  lying  in  a  cranny,  might  sud- 
denly assert  itself.  Still,  there  are  risks  every- 
where. One  might  be  struck  down  by  apoplexy 
at  a  vestry  meeting." 

Daphne  gave  his  arm  a  squeeze,  an  ingratiating, 
childish  squeeze,  suggestive  of  the  Daphne  of  old 
negotiating  for  extension  of  dress-allowance. 

"Jack,  stay  up  here!  You  have  done  enough." 

"Post  me,  Satanella!"  smiled  her  husband. 
Then,  more  seriously :  "  Daphne,  if  I  came  to  you 
and  asked  for  orders  now,  where  would  you  send 
me,  I  being  what  I  am  —  the  proprietor  of  the 
pit  —  and  you  being  what  you  are  —  the  pro- 
prietress of  my  good  name?  " 

Daphne's  fit  had  passed. 

"I  should  send  you,"  she  answered  bravely, 
"down  the  shaft,  with  orders  to  stay  there  until 
every  one  else  was  safely  out." 

"I  obey,"  said  Juggernaut.  "Au  revoir!" 


312    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"Jack!"  said  Daphne  faintly.  Her  face  was 
uplifted. 

"It  will  be  a  coaly  one!"  said  her  husband, 
complying. 

Then  came  an  accusation. 

"Daphne,  you  are  trembling!  This  is  not  up 
to  your  usual  standard." 

"I  can't  help  it,"  said  Daphne  miserably.  "I 
am  a  coward.  But  I  don't  mind,"  she  added, 
more  cheerfully,  "so  long  as  no  one  else  knows. 
You  won't  give  me  away!" 

At  that,  Juggernaut  held  her  to  him  a  moment 
longer. 

"  Daphne,  my  wife,"  he  whispered  suddenly  — • 
"thank  God  for  you  -  -  at  last!" 

Then  they  fell  apart,  and  she  ran  lightly  back 
to  the  motor  and  Nina. 

Once  she  turned  and  looked  over  her  shoulder, 
waving  her  hand  prettily.  Her  face,  framed  in  a 
motor-bonnet  and  lit  by  the  glare  of  a  naphtha 
light,  looked  absurdly  round  and  childish,  just  as 
it  had  done  upon  a  dim  and  distant  morning  in 
Snayling  Church. 

It  was  the  last  time  in  his  life  that  her  husband 
was  ever  to  behold  it. 

Master  Hopper,  partially  restored  by  brandy 
and  meat- juice,  and  feeling  on  the  whole  some- 
thing of  a  hero,  arrived  at  the  pit-head  an  hour 


THE  LAST  TO  LEAVE  313 

later,  there  to  be  claimed  by  his  mother  and  hus- 
tled off,  by  more  willing  hands  than  he  could 
comfortably  accommodate,  home  to  bed.  The 
bucket,  which  provided  standing-room  for  two 
passengers,  then  went  down  again. 

This  time  it  brought  up  Mr.  Walker,  holding 
a  supporting  arm  round  Carthew  —  a  sick  man, 
indeed.  He  was  less  hardened  to  subterranean 
existence  than  the  rest.  Sympathetic  murmurs 
arose.  The  bucket  was  swung  out  from  beneath 
the  pulley  and  landed  gently  on  the  edge  of  the 
shaft.  Carthew  stepped  out,  and  stood  swaying 
uncertainly. 

A  tall  girl  came  suddenly  forward. 

"Jim,  dear!'*  was  all  she  said. 

Carthew  surveyed  her,  and  smiled  weakly. 

"Hallo,  Nina!  That  you?" 

Miss  Tallentyre  took  his  arm. 

"The  car  is  waiting  for  you,"  she  said.  "Lean 
on  me  hard,  old  boy!" 

And  certainly  no  more  desirable  prop  than 
this  girl,  with  her  splendid  youth  and  glorious 
vitality,  was  ever  offered  to  a  weary  mortal.  Car- 
thew, dazed,  but  utterly  content,  put  a  feeble 
arm  round  the  slim  shoulders  of  the  woman 
whose  mere  hand  he  had  hitherto  counted  it 
heaven  to  touch,  and  the  pair  passed  together 
out  of  the  crowd  —  and  out;  of  this  narrative. 
Happiness  has  no  history. 


314    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

Others  were  coming  up  the  shaft  now.  First, 
Mr.  Wilkie,  in  a  very  fair  state  of  preservation; 
then  Denton,  the  reprobate,  insensible  —  his 
hands  were  in  tatters,  so  fiercely  had  he  worked; 
then  Atkinson,  still  sheer  drunk  with  the  success 
of  his  own  hymnology ;  then  Amos  Entwistle. 

Denton's  huge  inanimate  form  was  laid  on  a 
stretcher,  to  be  carried  home  under  the  direc- 
tion of  his  wife.  (The  wives  of  Renwick  and 
Davies,  poor  souls,  had  gone  home  long  ago.) 
But,  the  Belton  Hall  motor  returning  on  that  in- 
stant, Lady  Carr  insisted  on  carrying  husband 
and  wife  home  together.  The  rush  through  the 
night  air  brought  Denton  round,  and  he  was  able 
to  walk  into  his  own  house,  leaning  undeservedly 
upon  the  most  uplifted  little  woman  in  the  North 
of  England. 

Daphne  returned  to  the  pit-head  for  the  last 
time.  The  rescue  work  was  completed.  Surely 
she  might  claim  him  now! 

No,  the  block  and  tackle  were  not  working. 
No  one  was  coming  up  at  present.  Only  round 
the  shaft  a  knot  of  men  conferred  eagerly.  She 
would  wait  in  the  car. 

She  lay  back,  wrapped  in  a  rug,  —  a  cold  dawn 
was  breaking,  —  and  closed  her  eyes.  The  rush 
and  excitement  of  the  three  days  had  told  upon 
her.  She  had  no  clear  recollection  of  having  slept 
for  any  length  of  time  or  eaten  at  any  definite 


THE  LAST  TO  LEAVE  315 

period.  She  had  done  work  among  stricken  wives 
and  mothers  that  Belton  Village  would  never  for- 
get, but  she  had  not  realised  this.  All  her  head 
and  heart  were  filled  by  the  mighty  knowledge 
that  after  five  years  of  married  life  she  and  her 
husband  had  found  one  another. 

Meanwhile  there  was  silence  round  the  pit- 
head. 

"Vick,"  said  Daphne,  suddenly  fearful,  "go 
and  find  Mr.  Walker,  or  some  one,  and  ask  when 
Sir  John  will  be  up." 

Mr.  Vick,  who  had  been  dozing  comfortably 
at  his  wheel,  clambered  down  into  the  muddy 
road  and  departed  as  bidden.  Ten  minutes  later 
he  returned,  falteringly. 

"  Mr.  Walker  had  just  gone  down  the  pit  again, 
my  lady,"  he  said.  "There  has  been  a  slight  ex- 
plosion of  coal-dust,  I  was  to  tell  you.  Nothing 
serious  —  just  a  flash  and  a  spit  in  a  holler  place 
in  the  roof,  the  message  said." 

"Is Sir  John  down  there?"  Cold  fear  gripped 
Daphne's  heart. 

"Yes,  my  lady." 

"Is  he  safe,  do  you  know?" 

"I  could  n't  say,  my  lady,"  replied  Vick  dog- 
gedly. "I'll  enquire." 

He  turned  away,  glad  to  escape,  with  the  brisk 
demeanour  of  one  anxious  to  investigate  matters. 
But  before  he  reached  the  pit-head  the  answer  to 


316    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

all  possible  enquiries  came  to  meet  him,  in  the 
form  of  a  slow-moving  procession  carrying  some- 
thing in  its  midst. 

Very  gently  the  bearers  laid  the  stretcher  on 
the  grass  by  the  roadside.  Daphne,  white,  silent, 
but  composed,  stooped  down,  and  turned  back 
the  blanket  which  covered  her  husband's  face. 
He  lay  very  still.  His  head  and  eyes  were  roughly 
bandaged.  Daphne  whispered,  so  low  that  none 
other  could  hear :  — 

"Jack  — my  Jack!" 

His  voice  answered  hers,  from  amid  the  band- 
ages —  faint,  but  imperturbably  as  ever. 

"I'm  all  right,  dear.  Afraid  it  has  got  me  in 
the  eyes  a  bit,  though.  Take  me  home,  wife  of 
mine!  You  will  have  to  lead  me  about  with  a 
string,  now!" 

Daphne's  head  sank  lower  still,  and  she  whis- 
pered, almost  contentedly :  — 

"At  last,  I  can  really  be  of  some  use  to  you." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

ANOTHER  ALIAS 

"BRIAN  VEREKER  CARR,"  enquires  a  voice, 
"what  time  is  it?" 

"Half -past  four,  sir,"  replies  the  same  voice 
respectfully.  "In  twenty  minutes"  —  in  a  more 
truculent  tone  —  "you  will  have  to  go  upstairs 
and  get  ready  for  tea.  You  will  have  to  wash  your 
hands  —  and  your  face  too,  I  expect,"  adds  the 
voice  bitterly. 

Thus  at  the  age  of  eight  does  Master  Brian 
Vereker  Can*  commune  with  himself  —  a  habit 
acquired  during  an  infancy  spent  in  a  large  nurs- 
ery where  there  was  no  one  else  to  talk  to.  The 
necessity  for  this  form  of  duologue  no  longer  ex- 
ists, for  now  a  sister  shares  the  nursery  with  him, 
—  Brian  lives  in  dread  of  the  day  when  she  shall 
discover  that  her  manly  brother  not  only  owned 
but  once  rejoiced  in  the  great  doll's  house  in  the 
corner  by  the  fireplace,  —  but  the  habit  remains. 
Besides,  Miss  Carr  is  only  four  years  old,  and 
gentlemen  who  have  worn  knickerbockers  for 
years  find  it  difficult  to  unbend  towards  their  ex- 
treme juniors  to  any  great  extent.  Hence  Master 
Brian  still  confers  aloofly  with  himself,  even  in 


318    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

the  presence  of  adults.  There  are  touches  of 
Uncle  Anthony  Cuthbert  about  Brian. 

At  present  he  is  inadequately  filling  a  large 
armchair  in  front  of  the  library  fire  at  Belton. 
The  fire  is  the  sole  illuminant  of  the  room.  The 
curtains  are  closely  drawn,  for  it  is  a  cold  winter 
evening.  Brian  Vereker  continues  his  observa- 
tions, now  approaching  an  artistic  climax. 

"If  you  go  upstairs  promptly  and  obediently, 
like  a  good  boy,  what  do  you  think  mother  will 
give  you?"  enquires  voice  number  one. 

"Chocolates!"  replies  number  two,  with  an 
inflection  of  tone  which  implies  that  it  will  be 
playing  the  game  pretty  low  down  if  mother  does 
not. 

The  owner  of  both  voices  then  turns  an  appeal- 
ing pair  of  brown  eyes  upon  Daphne,  who  is  sit- 
ting on  the  other  side  of  the  fireplace,  engaged  in 
the  task  of  amusing  her  four-year-old  daughter. 

''We'll  see,"  she  replies,  after  the  immemorial 
practice  of  mother.  .  .  .  "And  suddenly,"  she 
continues  to  the  impatient  auditor  on  her  lap, 
"his  furry  skin  fell  away,  and  his  great  teeth 
disappeared,  and  he  stood  up  there  straight  and 
beautiful  in  shining  armour.  He  was  a  fairy 
prince,  after  all!  Brian,  dear,  tumble  out  of  that 
armchair.  Here  is  Dad." 

Daphne  must  have  quick  ears,  for  a  full  half- 
minute  elapses  before  the  door  opens  and  a  figure 


ANOTHER  ALIAS  319 

appears  in  the  dim  light  at  the  end  of  the  room. 
Apparently  the  darkness  does  not  trouble  him, 
for  he  circumnavigates  a  round  table  and  a  re- 
volving bookcase  without  hesitation,  and  finally 
drops  into  the  armchair  recently  vacated  by  his 
son. 

"Brian  Vereker  Carr,"  enquires  a  small  and 
respectful  voice  at  his  elbow,  "do  you  think  Dad 
will  play  with  you  to-night?" 

"I  am  sure  he  will,"  comes  a  confident  reply 
from  the  same  quarter,  "if  you  give  him  two 
minutes  to  light  his  pipe  in,  and  refrain  from  un- 
seemly demon —  demonstrations  of  affection  in 
the  mean  while." 

"It's  a  hard  world  for  parents,"  grumbles 
Juggernaut,  getting  up.  "  Where  is  my  tobacco- 
pouch?" 

His  hand  falls  upon  the  corner  of  the  mantel- 
piece, but  finds  nothing  there  but  a  framed  photo- 
graph of  a  sunburned  young  man  on  a  polo-pony 
—  Uncle  Ally,  to  be  precise. 

"Now  where  on  earth  is  that  pouch?  I  know 
I  left  it  on  the  left-hand  end  of  the  mantelpiece 
after  lunch." 

There  is  a  shriek  of  delight  at  this  from  Brian, 
in  which  Miss  Carr  joins,  for  the  great  daily  joke 
of  the  Carr  family  is  now  being  enacted. 

"Where  can  it  be?"  wails  Juggernaut.  "Under 
the  hearthrug,  perhaps?  No,  not  there!  In  the 


320 

blotting-pad?  No,  not  there!  7  know!  I  expect 
it  is  behind  the  coal-box." 

Surprising  as  it  may  appear,  his  surmise  proves 
to  be  correct;  and  the  triumphant  discovery  of 
the  missing  property  scores  a  dramatic  success 
which  no  repetition  seems  able  to  stale.  (This  is 
about  the  fiftieth  night  of  the  run  of  the  piece.) 

Presently  the  pipe  is  filled  and  lit,  Master 
Carr  being  permitted  to  kindle  the  match  and 
Miss  Carr  to  blow  it  out,  the  latter  feat  only  be- 
ing accomplished  by  much  expenditure  of  breath 
and  a  surreptitious  puff  from  behind  her  shoulder, 
contributed  by  an  agency  unknown. 

"Now,  Brian,  young  fellow,"  announces  Jug- 
gernaut, "I  will  play  for  ten  minutes.  Let  me 
speak  to  the  sister  first,  though." 

He  lifts  his  daughter,  whom  he  has  never  seen, 
from  her  mother's  knee,  and  exchanges  a  few 
whole-hearted  confidences  with  her  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  her  recreations,  conduct,  dolls,  health,  and 
outlook  on  life  in  general.  Then  he  restores  her, 
and  shouts :  — 

"Come  on,  Brian  Boroo!" 

There  is  a  responsive  shriek  from  his  son,  and 
the  game  begins.  It  is  not  every  boy,  Master 
Brian  proudly  reflects  as  he  crawls  on  all  fours 
beneath  a  writing-table,  who  can  play  at  blind 
man's  buff  with  a  real  blind  man! 

Daphne  leans  back  in  her  chair  and  surveys 


ANOTHER  ALIAS  321 

her  male  belongings  restfully.  Time  was  when 
this  husband  of  hers,  at  present  eluding  obsta- 
cles with  uncanny  facility  and  listening  intently, 
with  the  youthful  zest  of  a  boy -scout,  for  the  ex- 
cited breathing  of  his  quarry,  found  life  a  less  hil- 
arious business.  There  rises  before  her  the  pic- 
ture of  a  man  led  from  room  to  room,  steered 
round  corners,  dressed  like  a  child,  fed  like  a  baby 
— shattered,  groping,  gaunt,  but  pathetically  and 
doggedly  cheerful.  Neither  Daphne  nor  her  hus- 
band ever  speak  of  that  time  now.  Not  that  she 
regrets  it:  womanlike,  she  sometimes  feels  sorry 
it  is  over,  and  gone.  She  was  of  real  use  to  her 
man  in  those  days.  Now  he  seems  to  be  growing 
independent  of  her  again.  Then  she  smiles  com- 
fortably, for  she  knows  that  all  fears  on  that 
score  are  groundless.  He  is  hers,  body  and  soul. 
And  she  — 

.  A  small,  unclean,  and  insistent  hand  is  tugging 
at  her  skirt,  and  Miss  Carr,  swaying  unsteadily 
beneath  the  burden  of  a  bulky  and  tattered  vol- 
ume, claims  her  attention. 

"Show  me  pictures,"  she  commands. 

She  and  her  tome  are  hoisted  up,  and  the  ex- 
position begins. 

"Where  did  you  find  this  book,  Beloved?'*  en- 
quires Daphne.  The  book  is  an  ancient  copy  of 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  we  have  encountered 
it  once  before  in  this  narrative. 


322    THE  LIGHTING  OF  THE  CANDLE 

"Over  there,"  replies  Beloved,  indicating  the 
bottom  shelf  of  a  bookcase  with  a  pudgy  thumb 
—  "under  ze  Gwaphics.  What's  ze  name  of  that 
genelman?" 

To  Miss  Carr,  distinctions  of  caste  are  as  yet 
unknown.  In  her  eyes  every  member  of  the  op- 
posite sex,  from  the  alien  who  calls  on  Thursdays 
with  a  hurdy-gurdy  to  the  knight-in-armour  who 
keeps  eternal  vigil  in  the  outer  hall,  is  a  "gentle- 
man." Even  if  you  are  emitting  flames  from  your 
stomach,  as  in  the  present  instance,  you  are  not 
debarred  from  the  title. 

Daphne  surveys  the  picture  in  a  reminiscent 
fashion,  and  her  thoughts  go  back  to  a  distant 
Sunday  morning  at  the  Rectory,  with  her 
youngest  brother  kneeling  on  the  floor  endeav- 
ouring to  verify  a  pictorial  reference  in  this  very 
volume. 

"What  is  he  doin'  to  the  other  genelman?" 
continues  the  searcher  after  knowledge  upon  her 
knee,  in  a  concerned  voice. 

"He  is  trying  to  hurt  him,  dear." 

"What  for?" 

So  the  inexorable,  immemorial  catechism  goes 
on,  to  be  answered  with  infinite  patience  and  sur- 
prising resource.  Presently  the  cycle  of  enquiry 
completes  itself,  and  the  original  question  crops 
out  once  more. 

"What  did  you  say  was  ze  name  of  that  genel- 


ANOTHER  ALIAS  323 

man?" — with  a  puckered,  frowning  effort  at 
remembrance. 

"Apollyon,  dear." 

"Oh! "  Then  the  enquirer  strikes  a  fresh  note. 
"Do  you  know  him?" 

"I  used  to,"  replies  Daphne.  "At  least,"  she 
adds,  "I  used  to  know  some  one  who  I  thought 
was  like  him.  But  his  name  turned  out  not  to  be 
Apollyon  after  all." 

"What  was  his  name,  then  —  his  real  name?" 
pursues  Miss  Carr. 

Daphne  turns  to  another  illustration,  coming 
much  later  in  the  book,  and  surveys  it  with  shin- 
ing eyes. 

"His  real  name,  Beloved?"  she  asks. 

"Yes.  What  Mas  it?" 

'Mr.  Greatheart,"  says  Daphne  softly. 

THE  END 


Riberjfibe 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


DEC  1 4  1992 


A     000  128  155     9 


